


Where The Heart Is

by griseldalafey



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Curse, Car Accidents, F/M, Woobie Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold, floof family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-03-29 15:09:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3900823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/griseldalafey/pseuds/griseldalafey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Belle saves six year old Bae Gold from a car accident, his father offers her to stay with him while she heals from the injuries she sustained in doing so. What starts out as an act of gratitude soon turns into something far more layered when both father and son fall head over heels in love with the sweet librarian who has suddenly swept into their lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Accident

“Do you have everything?” Gold asked his six year old son just as he was about to board the school bus to Storybrooke Elementary, ensuring his backpack was securely strapped to his back.

“I have, Papa,” Bae replied brightly, giving him a hug.

“Well, have fun at the library today and I’ll see you this afternoon.”

With a final wave and a smile, Gold watched him climbing into the bus and settling behind one of the windows. Once the bus had driven away, he himself got into the Cadillac and drove to the pawnshop to open up. It was Tuesday and Tuesday’s where usually slow without many customers, but he had a particular fine clock from around 1900 in the backroom of his shop, ready to be repaired and he was very much looking forward to getting on with that.

Entering his shop, he switched the sign on the door and made his way to the backroom, contemplating how much his life had changed in the year that lay behind him.

After a long drawn-out, vicious court case he had finally managed to obtain sole custody over his son.  After his ex-wife Milah had left him a year after Bae’s birth and ran off with biker named Killian Jones, grasping her chance at the adventure she had clearly been so very much lacking while being married to him, she had initially left the boy with him.

Caring for a one-year old infant single-handedly while keeping a pawnshop and a rental business afloat had been hard.  But in many other ways life had become a great deal less complicated once Milah had left.   
Yes, he had resented her for leaving her son behind so selfishly, but at the same time there was no denying that his private life became a great deal more pleasant without having to manage Milah with her razor-sharp tongue, her constant complains and her frequent indiscretions.

As hard as being a single parent was, all things considered, he was coping quite well. And he loved being a father, loved his son more than anything else in the world. From the very moment he had first held him in his arms, Bae had been his greatest joy.

The day Milah had returned with Jones in tow, demanding her son back had marked the start of the darkest, most trying time of his life.  It had been the day of Bae’s second birthday and he had spend weeks meticulously planning the day, wanting to make sure everything was just as perfect as it could be. Even if Bae would barely remember an of it, he wanted his son to know that he was loved and special and worth every effort, even if his mother had abandoned him.

Then Milah showed up, a court order in hand, ready to start the custody battle. If he had genuinely believed that Milah missed her son and had his best interest at heart, he might have been able to push himself to working out an arrangement.  But after the first hearing it became crystal clear that all his ex-wife cared about was making him as miserable as possible and destroying everything he hold dear.

And so a grueling battle began. Milah appeared to be at disadvantage at first, having been the one who had walked out of her son. But soon the lawyer she was paying for with his alimony managed to turn the tables by pointing out that children were generally more depended on their mother and that Milah could offer Bae a stable home with two parents present.   
That Killian Jones was a selfish, careless bastard who looked upon his son as if he was merely an amusing pet and that he didn’t want that cocky idiot anywhere near his son was of no consequence to the ruling judge.

Milah had been given full custody of Bae and the day he had to surrender his son and watch him taken away by Milah and Jones had been the most devastating day of his life.  He missed his son every minute of every day he wasn’t with him and it soon became apparent that Milah had no intentions of sticking to the visiting arrangement they had drawn up.

He was only entitled to see Bae for a weekend once every month and every single time Milah managed to drop him off hours later than they had agreed on, cutting into the precious time he had with his son.    
After a couple of months it became clear to him that Bae wasn’t happy with his mother. His boy often looked unkept, was often covered in diaper rash and frequently sporting odd bruises that Milah claimed he acquired from him and Killian playing ‘rough house’.  

Then one weekend she didn’t show up all together and when he finally drove over to their place he found the house to be abandoned and their phones disconnected, leaving him without any means to contact them. By the time it was Monday he had worked himself into a state of complete panic, terrified of what could have happened to his son, begging the police to start a state-wide search.  

Then Milah had called, telling him in a cheerfully apologetic voice that she had totally forgotten it was his weekend and that they had taken a family trip together instead and that she was sure he wouldn’t mind skipping a month, would he?

He had lost his temper in a way that he had never lost control before and had Milah actually been standing in front of him he was certain he would have shred her to pieces.   
 Instead he had called her every name in the book, years of frustration over their horrible marriage and the way she had treated him pouring out of him like hot lava.

A week later he was back in court after Milah had accused him of threatening her. Instead of a conviction, he was offered a deal: he was only allowed to see Bae an hour every fortnight under supervision of a psychiatrist.  Knowing that if he got convicted Milah could ensure he wouldn’t get to see Bae at all, he had agreed.

In the end, the psychiatrist assigned to him had had turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Archie Hopper was a quiet man who treaded carefully, but proved to have a valuable insight in the situation. Only after a handful of visits, Hopper determined that he was no threat whatsoever to his son and that Bae actually appeared a great deal happier and better adjusted when he was with his father.   
He helped him document the signs that would work in his favor if he were to try and regain custody again.

And then fate finally smiled down on him. Killian Jones got himself arrested. From what Gold could gather, he had pissed off the wrong people and someone decided to inform the authorities of the illegal pot farm he kept in his shed, earning himself a three year jail sentence.    
Milah claimed vehemently that she had been entirely ignorant of her boyfriend’s antics and as there wasn’t enough conclusive evidence against her, all charges against her were eventually dropped.

However, this time when he filed for sole custody of Bae again in the midst of the trial against Jones, he won and after almost three years of fighting and lawsuits, Bae was finally back in his care permanently.

The first months after he had gotten Bae back had been difficult. His son had suffered under the often neglectful and unstable ‘care’ he had received from Milah and Jones and as a result was troubled by nightmares and painfully timid around people he didn’t now well.   
But upon Hopper’s suggestion, Bae had regular sessions with him and improved slowly.

Now, a full year later, Bae was thriving. He was doing well in school, having just started First Grade, had friends and was bit by bit becoming a carefree child again.

And he relished in having his boy close. After the horror of being separated from him for three years, nothing made him happier than seeing his son sprawled out on the rug in front of the tv watching cartoons or turning the kitchen table into lego world.   
His son was the brightest, most fascinating creature in the world and the way his little face lit up every time he saw his papa had Gold thoroughly convinced that he needed nothing else in the world.

* * *

 

The call came around four o’clock that afternoon, an hour before he was about to lock up the shop. When he picked up the phone his mind was still half on the clock he was repairing, but as soon as the caller identified herself, his insides ran cold.

“Mr. Gold, this Sheriff Swan speaking. I’m sorry to tell you this, but your son was involved in an accident this afternoon and is currently at Storybooke Hospital to have his injuries checked out. I can assure you that he is not in any life-threatening condition, but you should come over at once. I’ll meet you there to tell you the particulars.”

The well-rehearsed speech was delivered in record time and if anything he could appreciate the Sheriff’s effective directness.

Meanwhile the shop was spinning around him and he needed to hold on to the counter to keep himself from collapsing to the ground. Bae had been in an accident. He was hurt. Not life-threatening, but enough to warrant a visit to the hospital.   
His son was alone and in pain in the hospital and he wasn’t there for him.

That at last made him move frantically, shrugging into his coat and running towards the Cadillac, cursing the cane and his useless, shattered knee that slowed him down at a time like this. Not even bothering to lock up the shop behind him, he dived into the car and floored it to the hospital, his insides twisting in fear.

By the time he arrived there, he was panting, almost hyperventilating from anxiety and he shakily made his way to the reception desk. 

“Where’s Bae?” he rasped to the formidable nurse sitting behind a computer.

Cold, grey eyes were lifted to his and the woman pursed her lips derisively. “Name?”

“Rowan Gold. My son, Bailey Gold was brought in earlier this afternoon. He has been in an accident,” he managed.

“You need to fill out these forms,” the nurse replied, handing him a clipboard. “The doctor will be with you shortly to explain to you what happened.”

_“The hell I will!”_ he bellowed, slamming the clipboard down on the desk again, fury oozing out of every pore of his being. “I want to see my boy!”

“Mr. Gold?” A soft, gentle voice penetrated the haze of his anger and Gold whirled around to face a red-haired woman in uniform.

“You’re Bae’s papa, am I right?” she asked soothingly.

“Yes… where is my son? How is he?” he pleaded desperately.

“I am nurse Astrid and I’ll take you to see him straight away,” she told him, waving into the direction of the hallway.

“He still needs to fill out these forms,” the nurse behind the counter snapped.

“I’ll take care of it,” nurse Astrid replied smoothly, taking the clipboard from her. “This way if you please, Mr. Gold.”

Without even a backwards glance to the nurse at the counter, Gold followed nurse Astrid around the ER to one of the small rooms in the back.

“Bae is doing just fine,” she reassured him as they walked. “He has suffered only very minor injures, but he has been asking for you.”  She stopped in front of a pale blue door and Gold felt his nerves flare once more, terrified of what he would find inside the room.

When the door opened and he stepped inside he was greeted by a beaming, excited six year old, hopping up and down on the bed.

 “Papa! I got to ride an ambulance!”

_“Bae_ …” His voice broke as he enfolded his son into his arms, hugging him as tightly as he could. “Oh my dear boy…”

“It was awesome, papa…” Bae told him, wriggling against him. “They even put on the siren for me.”

Gold laughed through his tears, relief flooding him. His son was fine, appeared to be unscratched even and considered the whole thing to have been a big adventure.

The door opened again to reveal Sheriff Swan and Dr. Whale and Gold turned around to greet them, refusing to let go of his son as he did so.

“Apart from a pair of scraped knees and a scratch on his arm, your son is completely uninjured,” Whale told him at once. “He has been extremely lucky.”

“What happened?” Gold demanded, turning his attention to the Sheriff.

“I have already questioned several witnesses,” Emma Swan replied. “As you know the school had a field trip to the library today. From what I’ve gathered from Miss Ray, Bae’s teacher, the class had just left the library and were headed back to the bus. Bae was one of the last children to cross the street and just when he did a car rounded the corner into Main Street, driving way faster than the appropriate speed limit allows. You’ll be happy to know we have managed to arrest the driver and he is now in jailed at the station, awaiting charges for driving under influence, reckless driving and driving above the speed limit.

“Did the car collide with my son?” Gold asked, hugging Bae tighter against him as he realized what could have happened and how much worse this could have ended.

“Not quite,” Emma Swan said hesitantly. “You see, your son was amongst the last students to cross the street because he’d been talking to the librarian. When she saw the car approach, Miss French rushed into the street and pushed Bae out of harm’s way.”

Standing very still, Gold wrecked his brain.  Miss French had only been very recently appointed as the new Head librarian. She wasn’t one of his tenants, so he hadn’t had the chance to meet her properly yet. From a few coincidental glances he knew she was a petite, brunette woman… and that her name was Belle.   
Belle French.

Belle French who had saved his son’s life by the looks of it.

“Good god…” he breathed, ruffling his sons hair.

“Miss French got to ride the other ambulance, papa,” his son volunteered suddenly, “Only hers was going much faster than mine.”

Immediately his attention snapped back to the doctor and sheriff in front of him.   
“How is Miss French?” he asked worried. “Is she all right?”

Swan and Whale exchanged a look between them before Whale answered the question. “The car did hit Miss French… she is currently at the IC because she has suffered various injuries. At the moment I cannot yet divulge information concerning the extent of them.”

A wave of concern for the unknown woman washed over him. “Do anything you have to do to help her,” he implored. “Spare no expense… make sure she is comfortable. I’ll cover any costs that may arise… just make sure she gets well again.”

“You can be assured Miss French will receive every possible care,” Whale replied. “Would you like to be informed when she is ready to have visitors?”

“Yes!” Gold replied eagerly. “As soon as she is ready for it, I’d like to see her… thank her myself…”

“Very well,” Whale replied, extending his hand. “You are free to take Bae home, nurse Astrid will give you his discharge papers.”

“I’ll be in touch as well to update you on the progress of the investigation,” Sheriff Swan told him. “I will have to question Bae about the accident, but that can wait until tomorrow.”

A quick look of sympathy crossed over her face. “Take your son home, Mr. Gold. And be thankful it ended like this.”


	2. Chapter 2

The next day found him back at the hospital, almost collapsing under the weight of the biggest bouquet of flowers he had managed to purchase at the flower stall in the hallway of the hospital.   
 He was nervous, he realized, as the bouquet almost slipped from his sweaty grip.   
This woman had saved the life of his son at the risk of her own. How was he ever going to convey his thanks to her?

 Taking a deep breath to steel his nerves, he knocked on the door to announce his presence and opened it further.

Over the flowers, he spotted her lying in the hospital bed, dressed in a yellow gown and propped up against various pillows.   
“Miss French…?” he asked tentatively.

Startling blue eyes turned towards him and she frowned for a second before her face lit up in comprehension.  “Mr. Gold?”

He gave an affirmative nod, carefully placing the flowers on the foot end of her bed. Opening his mouth to express his gratitude, trying to remember the glowing speech he had rehearsed in the car, he was cut off by her anxious words.

“How is Bae doing?”

“He’s…” faltering slightly at her unexpected question, he stuttered. “He’s doing well… very well in fact. He came out virtually unscratched… he’s in school right now.”

“Good..”   
Relaxing back against the pillows, Miss French gave him a dazzling smile and for a moment he forgot how to breathe. “I’ve been so worried about him.”

“Thank you,” he finally managed empathically. “You saved my son’s life… if it hadn’t been for you…” he let the statement hang in the air, even uttering the words being too painful. “I can never thank you enough… I’m in your debt forever.”

“You don’t own me anything,” she told him, gazing up at him earnestly, blushing to the roots of her hair at his words. “Anyone would have done the same in that situation.”

At the age of three Bae had suffered from a diaper rash so severely that he’d barely been able to sit. While staying with him during his monthly weekend visits, the fruits and vegetables he had fed his son had been a complete novelty to the toddler.  When his son woke in the middle of the night from the terrors of his nightmares he sobbed constantly: _‘please don’t leave me alone, Papa’_ , making him realize that Bae was seeking confirmation that he wouldn’t leave him again, a fear that was very real to him.

He would never take another person than himself caring about the safety and well-being of his son for granted.

“I’m sorry you got hurt in the process,” he offered sincerely.

“It’s nothing too serious,” she waved away his concern. “Just a few bruises and scratches.”

That, he knew, was understating matters. There was a bruise the size of an egg on her temple that made him wince in sympathy from just looking at it.  From what Dr. Whale had told him over the phone, he knew that the bruise indicated a nasty concussion and that she in addition suffered from three cracked ribs and a sprained wrist, all sustained from when she had been thrown over the hood of the car and slammed into the ground.

“Thank you for the flowers, they are beautiful,” she continued, reaching out to touch the colorful petals, hissing in discomfort when the movement proved to be too much for her.

“Here, let me…” he hastened himself, moving the bouquet up. “I’ll go and find a vase for them.”

“They’ll really brighten up the place,” she said with another heartfelt smile.

She was so happy, so full of joy, even when she was lying in the hospital with rather severe injuries and in what he suspected was quite some pain.   
 He’d been unspeakably happy when he’d gotten his son back a year ago, but the bright, undiluted joy this woman was emitting was something else all together.

He found her a vase and managed to arrange the flowers in a way that didn’t completely ruin the bouquet and then he sat down at the single chair next to her bed.  He asked after her recovery and whether or not the hospital staff was treating her well and she asked him some more about Bae.    
He then asked how she was settling into Storybrooke and if she enjoyed working at the library. Which let to a discussion of books and the town they were both living in that flowed easily, until a brisk looking orderly came into the room to inform him that visiting hours had ended ten minutes ago and he realized with surprise that he’d been with her for more than an hour already.

“Thank you for coming to see me,” she told him genuinely. “Say hi to Bae for me.”

“I will,” he promised, shuffling his feet awkwardly. “I wish you a speedy recovery, Miss French.”

* * *

 

His son appeared to be wholly unaffected by the entire ordeal until three days after the accident.

On Sunday morning, just as they were having breakfast, Bae suddenly turned towards him, his brown eyes looking worried.

 “Papa… will they close the library if Miss French has to stay at the hospital?”

“No, they won’t,” he replied carefully. “Miss French is the Head Librarian but there are other people working there too and they’ll take over for as long as she is ill.”

“Will she be all right then?” Bae asked, still looking apprehensive. “Is she coming back to the library?”

“She will in a few weeks,” Gold reassured him. “She just needs some time to recover.”

“She looked very hurt,” Bae told him in a small voice. “After the accident I mean… she was lying very still and Miss Ray told me not to look, but I did and she wasn’t moving.”

Gold wasn’t surprised at the sudden information his son was offering. He had learned over time that children, and Bae in particular had a habit of carrying on with their little lives initially like nothing had happened and only volunteered information of their own accord days later.

“Well, I went to see her the day before yesterday,” he told him. “And Miss French was doing a lot better by then. She was sitting up and talking and everything. So you don’t have to worry about the library anymore.”

Bae nodded at that and carried on with his breakfast, but something oddly pensive in his eyes told Gold that he still wasn’t entirely reassured.   
 He was proven right when after breakfast, Bae headed to his play corner and announced that he was going to make Miss French a drawing and continued to work diligently on it for the next hour.

* * *

 

He debated the decision all morning, but between Bae’s lingering anxiety and his own vague desire to see her again, he packed up Bae and his drawing into the car that afternoon and drove to the hospital, hoping he wasn’t grossly invading on her privacy.

As he arrived just when visiting hour had started, they were easily admitted to her room and he felt once again fraud with nerves as he tapped the door, Bae clinging tightly to his hand.  She called out for admittance and as he opened the door he was greeted by the sight of her sitting once again propped up against the pillows, a book and her lap, her face breaking into a beaming smile at the sight of them.

“Hello… this is a nice surprise…” she said, tossing the book on the nightstand beside her bed. For a moment her eyes met his and there was such a warmth in them that he faltered at it.  
 Then she turned her attention towards his son, her smile becoming even wider, if such a thing was possible. “Hi Bae, how are you?”

And to his immense surprise his shy, introvert son who barely dared to look people he didn’t know well in the eye, let go of his hand and wandered over to her bed, looking up at her with a grin.   
“I’m fine and I’ve made you this!” he held out the scroll of paper and she took it eagerly, indicating for him to come closer so they could look at the drawing together.

Carefully untying the bow that held the scroll together, she rolled out the drawing and squeaked in delight. “You drew Spiderman! I love Spiderman!”   
Considering she was currently looking at the red and blue stick figure his son had drawn, Gold was duly impressed by the fact that she had been able to recognize the superhero that was currently the object of Bae’s fascination.   
As Bae launched of in a lengthy explanation of every scratch and doodle on the paper, looking at the librarian as if she had hung the moon, Gold watched the scene in front of him enfold with fascination.   
 Bae liked her. He _really_ liked her. And apart from his father, his therapist, his teacher and a handful of friends, Bae didn’t usually like anyone.

Slowly making his way towards the bed, the corner of his mouth turned up in a smirk. “Your powers of recognition astound me, Miss French.”

She quirked a smile at him, a dimple appearing in her cheek. “I am a librarian, Mr. Gold. I make it my business to read everything.”

“I hope we’re not intruding?” he then asked, his expression turning serious.

“No, not at all,” she replied instantly. “I’m glad you came… I was going stir crazy here by myself.”

“You didn’t get any visitors this afternoon?” he asked bewildered.

She shook her head, giving a wry smile in resignation. “I just moved here and I’ve been so busy setting up the library that I haven’t had the chance yet to get to know the people here.”

“Have you had _any_ visitors since you’ve been admitted?” he asked, dreading the answer.

“Yes, you!” she replied brightly.

That could not be cause for celebration, he realized, vexed by the thought that she’d been here all alone for days.

“What’s that on your head?” Bea asked suddenly, indicating the bruise on her temple.

“That, oh, I hit my head,” Belle answered smoothly. “It’s just a bump.”

“I have scrapped knees,” Bae confided in her, rolling up his jeans to show them. The scrapes were scabbed by now, the redness around them almost gone, but Bae still looked reasonable proud of them.

“Really?” Belle asked, fighting the smile of her face. “They look impressive.”

“Yeah,” Bae agreed in a satisfied tone of voice. “Nicolas Tillman has scraped knees too, but he just got them because he fell from the monkey bars. I got mine in a real accident.”

Caught between amusement and mortification, Gold held his breath until Belle burst into laughter and then he joined her. After a few seconds however, she grimaced, grabbing her left side as she tried to suppress her mirth.

“Are you all right?” he asked worried.

“Ribs… shouldn’t laugh…” she wheezed, trying to compose herself.

“I think you’re right,” she said, turning towards his son. “Your scrapes are way cooler.”

And he had never seen his son beam at anyone besides him like that before.

* * *

 

On Tuesday he was back at the hospital, carrying an early edition of _‘Little Dorrit_ ’, hoping she would enjoy it.  The idea of paying her a visit again had been plaguing his thoughts ever since he and Bae had left the hospital on Sunday and he was a little embarrassed to admit that he hadn’t been able to hold out any longer.   
He was just checking up on her, he told himself. Just making sure she was comfortable and well looked after, after risking her life to save his son.    
That she was easy to talk to was just an added bonus.

But when he entered the hospital room that afternoon, she looked decidedly less like her usual, cheerful self, with her red-rimmed eyes and a pale face.

“Are you all right?” he asked immediately, stepping closer towards the bed.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Gold!” Her smile was genuine and she beckoned for him to come closer. “It’s so nice to see you again.”

He sat down and they talked for a bit. He gave her the book, which she loved and she asked once more after Bae and to his amusement he noticed that she had pinned the Spiderman drawing on the billboard behind her bed.  They talked easily and after a while she seemed to brighten up somewhat, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.   
And when visiting hour came to an end, he found that he couldn’t let himself leave without getting to the bottom of it.

“Are you sure everything is all right?” he asked tentatively. “It’s only… you seem a little out of sorts.”

She gave him an embarrassed smile as if she’d been caught out.

“I received a bit of bad news this morning,” she admitted.

“Oh…” Immediately sitting down again, he gave her a concerned look. “Will you tell me about it?”

“Well, it’s really not a big deal…” she started, “and I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t and…I’ll just have to get used to the idea, that’s all…” 

He continued to look at her imploringly, silently encouraging her to continue.

“They want to discharge me from the hospital, but I’m not ready yet to go home.”

“Why not?” he asked bewildered, her words not making any sense to him. If she hadn’t healed properly, then why weren’t they keeping her?

“Because of my wrist and the ribs I can’t shower by myself, or get dressed, or cook, or do anything really…” she explained. “And since I live alone and I have no-one to care for me… Dr. Whale has suggested that I go to a rehabilitation center for three weeks…

He even gave me a brochure of a place in Lewiston…” she handed him a brochure Gold glanced at the name on the top.

"‘Blue Fern Sanatorium’", he read out loud.

“Yeah,” she nodded resignedly. “It doesn’t sound like much fun, but it’ll be for the best. I can’t be home by myself at the moment, Dr. Whale is right about that.”

“I’m sorry,” he offered, the feeling of responsibility for her situation making his stomach twist.

“Hey, it’s hardly your fault,” she reassured him. “It’s only three weeks, they’ll be over before I even know it.”

Her words sounded cheerful, but they didn’t lighten his mood. After what she had done, she didn’t deserve any of this.

“I’m really glad you came by,” she told him, her smile reaching her eyes for the first time that morning. “I’m already feeling a lot better.”

It was something at least, but to him it hardly felt like it was enough.

* * *

 

That evening, after he had tucked Bae into bed, he opened his laptop and googled the website for Blue Fern Sanatorium and only after five minutes of browsing it, he could already feel his stomach sinking.    
What on earth had Whale be thinking, referring her to a place like that?

There were a few photos on the website, showing various rooms entirely decorated in beige. On the main page was a photo of the physician in charge, a Dr. Faye Blue, looking into the camera with a rather terrifying scowl.

A hefty portion of the website was dedicated to the ‘rules and guidelines’ of the sanatorium and as he read the list, his indignation grew.

_No visitors allowed outside visiting hours. Family members only. Must be approved by staff._

_Food and drink not allowed in the rooms._

_Electronic appliances of any kind (including cellphones) are prohibited._

_Curfew from 9:00 PM to 8:00 AM. Patients are obliged to stay in the room. Daily physical therapy is mandatory._

_Patients are obliged to wear the attire provided by the Sanatorium. Own clothes not allowed._

With a snarl of disgust Gold closed his laptop with a snap. Compared to this federal prison looked more inviting.    
There was no way in hell he would allow friendly, cheerful Belle French to be shipped off to a place so atrocious.

Only, what other options were there? Belle had been right, with her condition still so fragile, she couldn’t be in her own apartment all by herself.  Briefly he toyed with the idea of bullying Whale into keeping her at the hospital at the threat of turning the man out of his beloved bachelor pad.

Then another thought occurred to him, an idea that send the blood pounding through his veins.

An idea that he initially brushed it off with an impatient shake of his head.   
It was ridiculous and utterly impracticable.

But for the rest of the evening he wasn’t quite able to get it out of his mind.

And by the time he was getting ready for bed himself he found that he was already figuring out solutions to a vast array of practical problems. He had a guest room with an adjourning bathroom that would be perfect for her. Walking the stairs would be a bit of challenge for her in the beginning, but the guest room was only on the first floor, so it was doable.   
 She could take her physical therapy at Storybooke Hospital and he could hire a nurse to help her with bathing and such.

Bae would love having her around.

By the time his eyes drifted shut, his mind was made up.

He was going to offer Miss French to recover at his home.


	3. Chapter 3

When he woke up the next morning, he realized grudgingly that he had managed to come up with the stupidest, most insane scheme ever.

Belle French was _never_ going to agree to spend three weeks under his roof and him merely suggesting such an outlandish plan would ensure she would never look at him again. And thus, when he went to the pawnshop that day, he took his laptop with him and spend most of the morning trying to find alternative rehabilitation or convalescent centers that had less rigid guidelines, but came up with nothing.  

Apparently Blue Fern Sanatorium was the only option in the vicinity.   
He should just let the matter rest. He had tried, but it was not within his power to change the situation. Like she had said herself, it was only three weeks, she would survive it.

* * *

 

When his lunch break came, he locked up the pawnshop and drove to Storybrooke Hospital, berating himself the entire way for his foolish stupidity.   
 It took scowling to three different nurses before he was admitted to her room outside of visiting hours, but finally he was granted permission and he knocked on the door hesitantly.

She called for entrance and although he was slowly getting used to the brilliance of her smile, it still caused his heart to stammer inside his chest.

“Good day, Mr. Gold,” she greeted him cheerfully. “I’m glad you came by…. I’m leaving for Lewiston tomorrow and I was afraid I wouldn’t see you before then.”

“Actually, that’s what I’ve come to discuss…” he started, still doubting every next word that was coming out of his mouth and sitting down on the chair next to her bed gingerly. He had obviously interrupted her during her lunch, because there was a tray in front of her and a plate, at which she was staring rather miserably.

“What on earth is that?” he asked getting side-tracked, staring with disdain at the slice of bread without a crust, the bright yellow, shining cheese and the glass of juice.

“Lunch, kinda…,” she grinned and sipped her juice, the only thing that looked edible.

Realizing that the food was unlikely to be any better at Blue Fern Sanatorium, he was speaking before he even realized it. “You are of course under no obligation to accept, but if you want, you are more than welcome to stay at my home until you’re well enough recovered to be on your own again…”

He paused for a few, tense seconds, feeling as if he was watching from some distance how a nervous, bumbling, middle-aged man was getting his foot rather firmly stuck in his mouth.

And yet, he was still talking. “I can arrange for a nurse to take care of you and you could get your physical therapy here… It’s only that Blue Fern Sanatorium didn’t seem to appeal to you and I’d like you to know that you have options if you’re so inlined…”

Realizing he was rambling like an idiot, he closed his mouth with a snap and waited for her reaction, his blood pumping in his ears. The glass of juice she was holding slowly sank back to the tray again as she stared at him with her mouth open.  

“You… you’re offering me to stay with you while I recover…?” she repeated incredulously.

“Yes…” he managed, wishing he could think of more arguments that would convince her, anything that would make this ridiculous scheme sound a little less incredulous.

“But wouldn’t I be horribly in your way?” she asked, looking at him with wide eyes.

“You wouldn’t,” he was quick to reassure her. “There’s plenty of room at my house and only slight accommodations will have to be made.”

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” she said softly. “I don’t want you to feel like you are obliged to me.”

Well, he was, but that wasn’t why he was offering, not that he would ever mention that to her. It was just that ever since he had heard what she had done and meeting her that first time, he felt unexplainable protective of her. Taking care of her, making sure she was all right wasn’t something he _had_ to do, it was something he _needed_ to do.

Not that he could mention that to her either.

“That’s not it at all,” he reassured her quickly. “I just… took a look at Blue Fern Sanatorium’s website and… I think it looks like something out of a dystopian novel.”

For a moment he got to enjoy her giggles before the guilt settled in as she grasped at her bruised left side.

“Sorry,” he apologized immediately. “I can assure you that I will remain entirely solemn for the duration of your stay.”

She gave another little snort at that.   
“Are you absolutely certain?” she then asked, giving him a searching look.

“I am,” he replied, completely serious now, hope blossoming inside his chest now that she really seemed to consider his offer.

“Please stay with me, Belle?” The use of her name had her smiling like nothing else.

“All right…” she conceded. “If you’re sure then I would very much like to accept.”

* * *

 

Once Belle agreed to stay with him, the few adjustments he needed to arrange were easily taken care of. He called his housekeeper and instructed her to prepare the guest room. A talk with Whale brought him up to speed with the particulars he had to consider regarding her care. Walking the stairs would be difficult for her during the first days and she was absolutely forbidden to carry things, but as long as she took it easy and didn’t strain herself, she should be all right.

Of course Belle needed some clothes and personal belongings during her stay with him and for a moment that proved to be the biggest obstacle, until nurse Astrid offered to go to Belle’s apartment and pack up the things she required. They were delivered to his house late afternoon and he put the suitcases in her room, ready for her to unpack.

He had carefully explained to Bae that Miss French was going to stay with them for a few weeks and his son’s reaction had surprised him a little.    
Bae had acted like it was the most normal thing in the world.

At precisely two o’clock the next afternoon he pulled up the Cadillac in front of the hospital to pick her up. She was brought outside in a wheelchair by nurse Astrid and for the first time since he had properly met her, she was dressed in something other than the yellow hospital gown.  Instead she was wearing a striped dress of soft cotton and low pumps.

Carefully helping her out of the wheelchair, he noticed she was still moving gingerly and that sitting down at the passenger seat of his car had her wincing.

“It’s only a short drive to the house,” he tried to reassure her, but Belle was already smiling again.

“It’s nice to be outside again.”

He took great pains in driving as smoothly as he could, avoiding the bumps and dents in the road and meanwhile the librarian next to him was chatting happily. “I’ve never been to this part of the town before, but it’s lovely here.”

He had to agree with that. It was early May and after a week of spring showers nature had all but erupted in fresh green leaves and colorful blossoms. When he pulled up in front of the driveway of his house, she went quiet mid-sentence, staring at the pink, Victorian mansion in awe.

“This is your house?” she breathed. “You live here?”

“I do,” he replied. “Although you should know that I prefer the term salmon over pink.”

She laughed quietly at that. “Your house is beautiful, Mr. Gold. I can’t wait to see the inside.”

Right. That was the one thing left he needed to address. Somewhere along the line he’d begun to think of her as ‘ _Belle_ ’ instead of ‘ _Miss French_ ’ and if he didn’t do something to remedy the situation, he was going to embarrass himself.     
“Please call me Rowan?” he asked. ‘If we’re going to share a house for three weeks, we shouldn’t act so formally around each other.”

Holding his breath, hoping he hadn’t overstepped somehow he awaited her reaction.

“I’d like that… Rowan…” The sound of her accent caressing his name caused his blood to heat up, but it at least he got exactly what he wanted.  “But only if you call me Belle.”

“Agreed,” he smiled at her while unbuckling his seatbelt. “Let’s get you settled in.”

He walked around the car to open the door for her and held out his hand to help her out of the car, wincing in sympathy as he noticed how painful and difficult it still was for her to move. Slowly they made their way to the porch and he helped her up the stairs, cursing his ruined knee that he couldn’t simply pick her up and carry her inside.

Now there was a thought that did nothing to calm his treacherous heart.

“Sorry, everything just takes forever.” Belle told him apologetically and suddenly he found himself smiling.

From where he was standing, forever sounded pretty damn good.

* * *

 

Dinner that evening wasn’t half as awkward as he’d feared it would be. Bae came home from school with a new book and within minutes he and Belle were sitting on the couch reading together until it was time to eat. Covering the small distance from the couch to the dining table was still difficult for her and he suspected that sitting in one position for too long was only aggravating her injuries.

“It smells good in here,” she said brightly as she finally slid into the chair.

“Just chili and corn,” he answered modestly while Bae let out an enthusiastic cheer.

“It’s his favorite,” he told her quietly while Bae went to the sink to wash his hands. “And it allows me the opportunity to feed him some vegetables once in a while.”

After she took her first bite, Belle’s eyes went wide. “This is delicious!”

“I know!” Bae replied enthusiastically. “Chili and corn is the best!”

In amusement, Gold watched how both of them cleared their plates in record time. “Do you cook at all?” he asked her, refilling both their plates.

“I can barely boil an egg,” Belle confessed. “I usually get take-out or make a salad and I get by with that. But after a week of hospital food I was really craving a good meal.”

Adding ‘ _feeding Belle properly_ ’ to his mental to do-list for the coming three weeks, he poured her another glass of water and soon the conversation turned towards the upcoming Miner’s Day.

“It’s really fun,” Bae told her. “We’re making candles at school to sell for charity and there’s a fair and a bouncing castle.”

“It sounds wonderful,” Belle replied. “Is it an annual festival?”

“It’s been held for decades,” Gold explained. “There used to be a lot mines around here, but now only a few of them are still operative. It started out as a ceremony were the townsfolk brought candles to the miners and the miners gave coal to the town, but these days it’s mostly a carnival. Still, it’s a nice bit of extra income for Storybrooke’s shopkeepers.”

“It’s a shame I’m on sick leave,” Belle pondered. “It would be a great opportunity for the library to do a small exposition on the mines surrounding Storybooke. We could have a local history section.”

“I might have a book on the history of mining in the shop, I’ll look it up for you,” Gold replied, reveling in the smile he got in return.

“Are you coming with us to Miner’s Day, Belle?” Bae asked excitedly. “We can go on the bouncing castle together!”

“I’m sorry, Bae,” Belle replied, a look of genuine regret flashing over her face. “I think that by that time, I’m not recovered enough.”

“Oh… okay,” Bae answered, his face falling for a moment before he perked up again. “We’ll get you a candle though!”

“I’d like that,” Belle smiled at him.

* * *

 

 After dinner, he put Bae to bed and Belle went to her room soon after that, rather exhausted after being up for the most part of the day.

Sitting at the dining table, Gold finished up some paperwork but found that his mind was easily distracted that evening. It had only been one evening, but Belle French was easily the most compatible person he’d ever lived with, aside from his son.  Just knowing that she was asleep under his roof gave him a certain sense of peace. She fitted right into his small family, like she’d belonged there all along and at the same time he was extremely aware of her presence, the house seemingly brighter and warmer since the moment she’d entered it.

If he had any reluctancy about her staying with him for almost a month, it had evaporated completely during the evening.

For as long as it would last, inviting her to stay with him had been the best decision of his life.

* * *

 

The next morning he woke up at his usual time and showered and got dressed before going over to Bae’s room to wake him up.  To his surprise he found that his son’s bed was empty. Just as he was about to make his way downstairs to look for him, he heard giggles coming out of the guest room and he froze in his steps.

Frowning he retreated and paused in front of the door, listening for a few moments to the sounds coming from inside.

“How do you even do this? I keep missing the ball!” Belle’s voice sounded both amused and exasperated.

In response his son burst out in another fit of giggles. “You need to move the pen over the screen, like this…”

Another snort of laughter was heard, followed by a triumphant cry: “Yes, finally! Oh… what do I do now?”

“Run!” Bae encouraged her, still laughing. “You have to… never mind, you’re out.”

Raising his hand, he knocked on the door, feeling like it wouldn’t be right to just barge in.

“Come in!” Belle called out, seemingly wholly unperturbed by his presence at the door. Carefully he pushed it open and peeked inside, his mouth going dry at the sight that greeted him.    
Belle was sitting up in bed, leaning against a row of pillows, dressed in bright blue, striped pajamas, her mass of dark curls spilling over her shoulders.  Bae was sitting cross-legged on the bed across from her, his Nintendo DS lying between them and a glance at the tiny screen told them they’d been playing a game together.

“You need to get ready for school, son,” he managed, his voice sounding oddly hoarse.

Heaving a regretful sigh, Bae slid of the bed, handing his DS to Belle. “You can practice if you like,” he said generously. “We can play another game this afternoon.”

“I’d like that!” Belle replied with a grin.

Once Bae had skipped out of the room, off to brush his teeth, Gold gave her an apologetic look. “I hope he didn’t disturb you?”

“Oh no!” Belle assured him instantly. “I was awake at five o’ clock already. If anything, I was glad for the company. You have a wonderful son, Rowan.”

He smiled, both at her words and the way his name rolled so effortlessly from her lips. “He is. He’s my greatest joy.”

“I can imagine that,” her voice was barely more than a whisper and when he looked up to meet her eyes, he found her looking at him with an expression filled with soft wonder.

“Yes… well…” suddenly realizing he was standing in the bedroom of a young woman who was a guest in his house, he strained up and coughed awkwardly. “I’ll go down to make breakfast, you’re welcome to join us… take all the time you need.”

“Thank you,” she beamed at him and he practically bolted from her bedroom before he could say anything stupid.

“Are you almost finished, Bae?” he asked the bathroom door on his way downstairs. “I am!” his son yelled back. “Papa…?”

Pausing in his tracks, he popped his head into the bathroom to find Bae looking at him with a huge smile on his face.

“I’m really glad that Belle’s here.”


	4. Chapter 4

It had only been two days, but it felt like Belle had been living with them for weeks already.  In the evening she helped Bae with his reading and each time he caught them sitting closely together, two dark heads bend over a book, his heart squeezed with an unfamiliar tug of longing.

One of her co-workers from the library had stopped by to visit and had, upon her request, brought half the library worth of books that would interest a six year old just starting to read. They poured over the books together, her gentle coaxing and guidance making Bae even more enthusiastic for the subject.   
 Once they’d finished reading together he would take over to help Bae with his maths homework, feeling it was more up his alley, acutely aware of her eyes on them as they worked on the assignment.

During his lunch hour he drove home so that they could eat together. Moving around was still difficult for her, so he fixed them both a sandwich or soup while he listened to her chatter.

He quickly discovered she could talk about _anything_ and be completely captivating while doing it. They talked endlessly about books - once she was more recovered he had to show her his rare book collection at the shop - but also about movies, music, traveling, food, current affairs, random things that happened around town or nothing particular at all.    
No matter what they were talking about, the hour always flew by.

That afternoon however, it was obvious almost from the moment he stepped inside that she was rather upset. There were red spots in her neck and she seemed fidgety and agitated.

“Is there something wrong?” he asked, his insides instantly tightening with worry.  

To his relief it took little to no effort on his part to coax the reason for her distress out of her.

With a deep sigh she told him how she’d received a phone-call from Mayor Mills, informing her that her request for sick leave was denied and that the mayor would assign her alternative tasks until Dr. Whale cleared her for work in the library again.

He was already almost jumping out of his skin with fury when she pondered out loud: “I could go into the library tomorrow. As long as I’m bodily present there, Mayor Mills cannot object. I could do some administrative work or some shelving.”

She was barely able to make it up the stairs. If she sat in one position for too long her movements were stiff and haltingly for an hour afterwards. There was no way she’d be able to return to work the next day, no matter how easy she took it.

With great effort he pushed his anger down for the moment and focussed on making lunch, but inwardly he kept seething.  She couldn’t even stand up long enough to butter a sandwich. There was no way in hell he would allow Mayor Mills to bully her into going back to work, not until she was completely healed and received a clean bill of health.

“Don’t worry,” he reassured her, putting down the plate in front of her and sitting down across the table. “Mayor Mills has nothing on you. You’ve passed your ninety-days trial period, have you not?”

Belle nodded, her eyes still fraud with worry. “I have, but the Mayor says I won’t be able to take sick leave until I’ve been employed for a year.”

“She’s bluffing,” he replied with more confidence than he felt. “Mayor Mills wanted to close down the library, but was outvoted by the rest of the council. So instead she had to hire a new Head librarian. She’s just trying to use this as an excuse to fire you and close down the library after all.”

“But she does have a point,” Belle countered. “It’s going to take another two weeks and a half before Dr. Whale clears me… I don’t have that many sick days. She’s well in her right to lay me off, even if I offer her to take unpaid leave.”

“Don’t worry,” he reassured her once again, his mind already running a mile an hour. “Mayor Mills won’t be able to lift a finger against you.”

Not if he had anything to say about it. 

* * *

 

 Straight after lunch he drove to the Mayor’s Office, demanding to see her right away.  Regina Mills was seated behind her desk and the loud, garish interior of her office instantly gave him a migraine.

“Gold?” She asked in her cool voice, one perfectly sculpted eyebrow raising up. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Good afternoon, Regina,” he replied smoothly. “How are things?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary…” she replied, suspicion growing in her voice. “Are you here for a social call?”

“More or less,” he answered, advancing the desk and calmly seating himself down in one of the god-awful black velvet, pseudo baroque chairs.  
“I merely stopped by to inquire if you’ve heard about the dreadful business with young Nottingham.”

“You mean the guy arrested for drunk driving last week?” Regina inquired, her face blank. “From what the Sheriff told me, he will be transported to Boston by the end of the week to stand trial.”

“That he will,” Gold agreed. “But I’m also worried about the ramifications this will have for our town.”

“How so?” Regina inquired, freezing slightly at his words.

“Well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out how Keith Nottingham got hammered at two o’ clock in the afternoon,” Gold said with a calculated smile.   
“Over the past two years there have been numerous complaints about the loose alcohol policy ‘The Rabbit Hole’ enforces. Pouring drinks at all hours of the day.., not really limiting the intake of already inebriated customers… From what I recall, you never thought it necessary to put some restrictors on the place, did you?”

“We only have limited funding for the Sheriff’s department,” Regina replied, immediately becoming defensive. “I want to spend that on the general safety of the town, not babysitting a few adolescents with too much preference for alcohol.”

“Unfortunately, when one of those adolescents starts driving around the town like a maniac, it does become a matter of public safety. I am sure Miss French can attest to that.”

“Yes, well… that was a very unfortunate incident,” Regina said impatiently. “But Mr. Nottingham will face the consequences of his rash actions.”

“He will, but unfortunately, so will Miss French,” Gold answered. “And to think all of this could have been prevented with just a little bit more of a pro-active attitude regarding The Rabbit Hole. When are the elections again, Regina? For I assume you want to serve a second term as Mayor?”

“What do you want, Gold?” Regina asked flat-out, all pretense gone.

“Well, it hardly seems fair that Miss French should have to suffer from this incident any more than she already has,” he began. “Since she has started at the library, she has performed her duties admirably well, so there should be no set-backs for her job-wise, since the accident occurred without any fault of her own.   
Even more so, because of her quick thinking she saved a child from being hit by Nottingham’s car.”

“Yes, Miss French is quite the hero,” Regina replied with a slight sneer in her voice.

“Considering it was _my_ child that she saved, you’ll forgive me for agreeing a great deal more whole-heartedly with that statement,” he answered coolly.

“So here it is, Miss French will be allowed to recuperate from her injuries for as long as she needs, without loss of pay. Once Dr. Whale has cleared her for work again, she can return to her position.”

“That’s a rather generous settlement,” Regina said, eyeing him with some surprise. “And what’s in it for me?”

“If you agree to these terms I won’t issue a motion of no-confidence at the next town council meeting against you,” he replied, playing out his trump card.   
“Because that would be _most_ inconvenient so shortly before the elections.”

Regina paled at his words. “You wouldn’t dare!” she hissed.

“It could have been my son being hit by that car,” he shot back, some of the anger he was feeling breaking through his calm facade.   
“If it hadn’t been for Miss French, my son could have been dead. So if you don’t back off and let her recover in peace, then believe me Regina, I dare!”

For a few moments longer the mayor held his gaze, but then slumped back in her chair and he knew he’d won.    
“Do we have a deal?”

“Fine,” she agreed grudgingly. “Since this could be considered special circumstances, Miss French will be granted sick leave.”

“Thank you,” he replied smoothly, getting to his feet. “I’m glad we were able to resolve this.”

“You know Gold,” she called after him while he was heading for the door. “I’d be careful if I were you.”

“How so?” he asked puzzled, turning around to face her.

“A young woman staying at your house for weeks on end… People will talk about that,”

Regina raised her eyebrows suggestively and gave him a knowing look. “They will assume all kinds of things.”

“Have I ever given the impression that I care about what the town is saying about me?” he snapped back, riled by her words.

“No, but it’s your own assumptions I worry about. Your wife has been gone for a while now, so it’s only natural that you start looking around. But going after a pretty, young girl half your age?”

Regina gave him a patronizing smile. “Don’t become a cliche, Gold.”

Her words set his teeth on edge, but he managed to keep his composure.

“If this is the level of sense we are to expect from you, I fear for your second term Madame Mayor,” he sneered before exiting the office.

* * *

 

The implication of Regina Mills’ words nagged at the back of his mind for the rest of the afternoon.   
Of course he had expected that his rash decision of offering the librarian to stay with him would send every old bitty in the vicinity into a flutter of indignation.  But since nothing noteworthy had happened in Storybooke since a virtuous schoolteacher was discovered to be having an affair with a very married veterinarian technician three years ago, he had assumed he was doing them a bit a favor actually.

Because in spite of their suspicions, his sole reason for offering Belle to stay with him was because he wanted her to be comfortable when she was recovering from the aftermath of saving his son’s life.

 That she turned out to be wonderful company and that his son adored her was just a very pleasant extra.

And despite what Regina might think, he wasn’t looking for an affair, let alone a romance or a permanent relationship. One horrendous marriage was more than enough to cure him of the notion for the rest of his life.    
He had his son and that was enough for him and the Mayor’s insinuations were just too ridiculous to contemplate.  

Pretty, young women with a sweet disposition didn’t fall for grumpy old monsters and if his marriage had taught him one thing it was that he wasn’t even remotely cut out to be a good husband.

He was merely repaying a debt. That was all there was to it.

* * *

 

That evening, after Bae had gone to bed, he told her as casually as he could manage that the whole matter concerning her sick leave had been sorted out. Of course, no matter how nonchalant he pretended to be, she quickly caught on to the fact that he’d had quite a hand in convincing the Mayor and her relief and gratitude made him feel highly self-conscious.

“Really,” she insisted. “You’ve done so much for me… you’ve visited me in hospital, you’re letting me stay in your house and you’re taking care of me… and now you have persuaded the Mayor to grant me sick leave… it’s really too much.”

She had pushed his son out of the way of a car driven by an idiot that had been drunk as a skunk, at the risk of her own life.  He could spend the rest of his life catering to her every need and it wouldn’t be enough.

“Nonsense,” he waved away her objections. “I’ll take any opportunity to outdo Mayor Mills. And Bae and I both like having you here.”

“I like it here too,” she admitted with shy smile that caused his heart to skip a beat.

“It’s good for Bae, really,” he said quickly, trying to cover up his own confusion. “He doesn’t really have a female role-model.”

“What happened to his mother?” Belle asked quietly. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

He didn’t necessarily mind, but Milah was still his least favorite topic to talk about. Nevertheless, her question made sense and if she was going to stay with them for a lengthily period of time it would perhaps be better if he told her the basics concerning his divorce.

“Milah, Bae’s mother and I separated five years ago,” he began carefully. “She left us… she left Bae when he wasn’t even a year old and took off with another man. For over a year I didn’t hear from her until she returned on the day of Bae’s second birthday.”

“She didn’t want to see her son for more than a year?” Belle asked, incredulity clear in her voice.

Gold nodded. “Well, when she did return, she immediately demanded full custody of him, but yes, for a year it seemed like she had disappeared from the earth.”

“How did she even…” Belle started, before biting down on her lip. “Sorry, it’s not my place to judge. But why did she not tried to contact her son for a year?”

“Bae’s birth wasn’t exactly planned,” he told her. “And I don’t think that at the time Milah was really prepared to be a mother.”

Suddenly, the story came spilling out as if inside him some kind of internal dam had broken.

“I first met Milah twenty years ago. We were together for a couple of months, but soon it became clear that we both wanted very different things. I was ready to settle down and start a family, but Milah wasn’t, so in the end we broke up.   
Seven years ago we met again and we got together for old time’s sake. Not my brightest decision and I didn’t believe at the time that it would lead to anything serious, but then Milah contacted me about six weeks later and told me she was pregnant.

I…” he took a deep breath and briefly glanced up, only to find Belle looking at him with a warm, encouraging look on her face.

“I wanted to be a father more than anything in the world,” he confessed. “I wanted a family and I thought I was running out of time. When Milah told me that she was pregnant I offered her anything I could think of, just to ensure she would stay and keep the baby.

In retrospect, perhaps that was stupid. As a couple, we never stood a chance, but for my boy… I’d do it all ten times over again, because Bae made it all worth it.”

Belle smiled softly at him and he was relieved not to find any judgement in her eyes. “I can imagine that. Your son is absolutely wonderful, Rowan.”

“He is,” he agreed with a soft smile. “The first time I held him in my arms, he looked at me with those clear brown eyes of him and reached out and grabbed my nose. I was sold instantly. I could hold him for hours… barely wanted to put him down.

Milah had a harder time adjusting to being a parent. It took her a long time to recover from the birth and Bae always seemed more fidgety when he was with her.

To be honest, I liked it that Bae seemed to prefer me over MIlah and that probably made it even more difficult for her to bond with him. She grew more and more unhappy. With me, with her life, mostly with me though… when Bae was almost a year old, she met a man. He was young, adventurous, handsome, in short everything that I was not. He offered her freedom and she took it.”

That was it, the whole sorry tale of his dream family that in the end had been nothing more than a castle in the clouds.

After a long moment of silence, Belle sighed deeply.

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think either of you deserved to be abandoned like that,” she told him softly and he was taken aback by the genuine look of hurt on her face.

“Well, Bae certainly didn’t,” he replied.

For a moment she looked like she was about to answer, but then she apparently thought the better of it.   
“Do you share custody now?” she asked instead.

“No,” he replied instantly. “Bae belongs to me.”

He then proceeded to tell her about the grueling custody battle, the long months he had spend separated from his son, his worry for his wellbeing and the endless frustration and desperation of the court hearings and by the time he had finished, Belle’s eyes were bright with unshed tears.

They had started out at opposite ends of the couch, but somehow, while they’d been talking, she had scooted closer towards him and now their knees were touching and her hand was on his lower arm, rubbing gently.

“How horrible for the both of you,” she said softly, her voice thick with sympathy. “You must have missed him so much.”

“It was hell,” he agreed whole-heartedly. “Not having him near me, but also constantly having to worry if Milah was taking care of him, if she was feeding him properly, if she didn’t leave him alone when she went out partying…”

“I can’t imagine someone turning their back on their own child,” Belle mussed. “Especially one as wonderful as Bae. He’s very lucky he has you.”

“Belle…” he began with difficulty, searching for the right words.  
“You saved his life. After everything we’ve been through, I could have lost him if it hadn’t been for you. Ensuring you get your sick leave, you staying here while you recover… it pales in comparison to that. The last thing I want is to make you feel uncomfortable, it’s just want you to know how grateful I am…”

The next moment she had wrapped her arms around his shoulders in a loose hug and more out of reflex than anything else, his own arms went up around her back.

“I understand now,” she said smiling, her breath ghosting his neck. “And in return, I’m very grateful for everything you do for me.”

His nose was still filled with the scent of her hair, his insides reeling with the feel of her in his arms.  

He was already liking Belle far more than he had any right to for the kindness and affection she showed his son, but having that same kindness and affection directed at himself unnerved him more then he dared to admit.

With Milah he had always felt inadequate and lacking in many respects.

With Belle…

Better not dwell on that, he decided firmly.   
It was a far too dangerous path to contemplate.


	5. Chapter 5

He’d heard her cry out when he walked past her bedroom. Pausing in front of the door, he hesitantly called out in case she was distressed or in pain. “Belle?”

“Rowan?” she echoed, her voice sounding strained and muffled. “Can you come in? I… I’m afraid I need help.

With her permission granted, he opened the door, but almost instantly froze again when he caught sight of her.    
Belle was standing in front of the wardrobe, her right side turned towards him, clad only in her bra and panties, her arms and part of her head stuck in a spaghetti strap top.   
He tried not to stare, he really did, but he couldn’t help swallowing harshly as his eyes travelled covertly over her curves and the sheer endless amount of creamy, brilliant white skin, her modesty only protected by the pale blue, lacy underwear he was trying very hard not to notice.

‘Eyes on her _face_ , Gold!’ he told himself sternly.

“Help?” she muttered resignedly.

That, at last, snapped him out of his trance and he crossed the room to her side. “What are you doing?”

“I thought I’d be able to dress myself. Now I’m stuck.” Her voice was laced with frustration and he gently untangled the top and pulled it down, his fingertips accidentally skimming the silky skin of her back.   
Up close she was even more alluring, with the scent of her hair filling his nose and so much soft, perfect skin only inches away from his fingers, causing his body to react almost instantly.

Well, hadn’t that been a hundred years ago?

“Aren’t you supposed to wait for the nurse?” he asked, wincing as he noticed how hoarse his voice was sounding.    
But heavens, she was absolutely breathtaking with her slightly flushed cheeks and her curls in disarray, one of them bouncing persistently in front of her eyes. The urge to tuck it behind her ear almost became too great, but then she turned around to face him.

“I am, but I wanted to try for myself…”

Biting her lower lip, she added: “I’m not exactly used to not being able to do things for myself…”

He was going to reply to that, but the words dried up in his throat as he got sight of her left side, worry instantly overruling his rising arousal.

“Oh my god… _Belle_ …” Placing a careful hand on her left shoulder, he turned her slightly so that he could inspect the bruising that covered the left side of her body almost entirely, a sense of horror filling him.   
She was literally black and blue, almost every inch of her skin heavily discolored, the intensity of the bruising varying from a deep purple to almost green. Her hip, upper arm and upper thigh seemed to have suffered the worst, but just below her tank top, he noticed a rather large, angry red bruise on her stomach too.   
It was no wonder moving around was so difficult for. He was rather surprised she was able to get around at all.

This slip of a woman had jumped in front of a speeding car, had bounced off the hood and slammed into the ground like a rag doll and if she hadn’t, it would have been Bae who’d been hurt like that.

Still, the sight of Belle’s bruised, discolored skin made his stomach churn in sympathy.

“You must be in so much pain,” he said softly.

Under his scrutiny she’d blushed even deeper, but she managed to give him a smile. “It’s not so bad… the painkillers help a lot.”

He realized his hand was still on her shoulder and that at some point he had started to stroke his thumb over a bit of uninjured skin. Embarrassed by his own actions, he pulled back hastily.

“Thank you for saving me from my top,” she said with small laugh and he smiled back at her, suddenly very aware how her eyes were even deeper blue up close.

“You’re very welcome,” he breathed. “Do you… need more help getting dressed?”

Belle eyed the dress hanging from the wardrobe, biting her lip again in contemplation and that little gesture was going to become a serious threat to his self-control.

“I think I can manage putting it on, but could you button me up?” He nodded and watched how she pulled the dress from the hanger and stepped into it. She managed to put her arms through the sleeves, but by the time she’d pulled the sleeves up to her elbows he could tell from he tensing of her posture and the flash of discomfort crossing her face how much effort it was costing her.

“Here… let me…” he said quietly, stepping up behind her to carefully pull the dress up, mindful not to pull the fabric against her bruises. He started at the small of her back, sliding each tiny button through the hole, mindful not to let his fingers stray against her back and purposefully ignoring the catch of her lacy bra peeping above the top.

Once the dress was on properly, she turned around and smiled at him. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” he replied. “Just please wait until the nurse get here next time.”

“I will,” she promised. “It’s going to take some time, I’ll just have to accept that.”

Having seen the extent of her bruising, Gold thought to himself that the three weeks Dr. Whale has set for her recovery was a rather optimistic scenario. It could take months before that kind of bruising had entirely faded away.

At least this way he could keep an eye on her and make sure she didn’t stretch herself.

Together they made their way downstairs and he noticed how she still clutched the bannister of the stairs and a surge of protectiveness flared up in him.

He was going to see to it that she’d be right as rain again, no matter how long it would take.

* * *

 

When Miner’s Day arrived the weather did absolutely everything to try and spoil the festive atmosphere of the day.

 Leaving Belle behind at home, snuggled up on the couch with blankets, cushions, books and a galleon of tea, Gold and Bae made their way between the stalls, the icy temperature biting their faces, the clouds above their heads grey and heavy with rain.   
First they went to the stall of Bae’s Elementary school, where the decorated candles were arranged by class and Gold bought his son’s Spiderman themed candle and carefully put it inside his pocket.

“Are we going to get Belle a candle as well?” Be asked and Gold nodded, letting himself get dragged off to another stand that sold candles.

“What’s Belle’s favorite color?” Bae asked, eyeing each of the candles critically.

“Light blue,” he replied without thinking, his heart stuttering at the memory of her underwear.

“Then she’ll like this one!” Bae picked up a round, blue candle with swirling patterns on it and he couldn’t help but agreeing with his son.

 Once the purchase was made it was also tucked away securely and then they made their way to the bouncing castle. By the time they got there, it had started to drizzle and after Bae had been jumping on the castle for only five minutes, the attraction was closed because the rain made the plastic floor too slippery.

“How about we get a pretzel?” Gold suggested in an attempt to cheer him up, once Bae had joined him again.   
His son looked up at him, looking indecisive, wet curls plastered to his forehead.

“Papa? I think I want to go home.”

Going home meant getting out of the chill and the rain and back inside their warm, comfortable home. Going home meant going back to Belle and enjoy her smiles and chatter and suddenly he could think of nothing he liked better.

“Let’s go home!”

* * *

 

Rowan and Bae had left for Miner’s Day and as she had feared, she was nowhere near recovered enough to join them.  So instead she had waved them off and installed herself on the couch with ‘ _The Matchmaker of Pėrigord_ ’ a novel that promised to be as quirky and entertaining as ‘ _Le Fabuleux Destin d’ Amelie Poulain’_ , which happened to be her favorite movie.   
The day before she’d gotten halfway through the novel in a matter of hours, eagerly devouring page after page of bizarre incidents, hilarious characterizations and mouth watering recipes, but today she found she simple couldn’t concentrate, her thoughts returning to the man who had so selflessly opened his home for her again and again.

He had been very attentive towards her since the moment he’d met her, but after discovering the full extend of her injuries the day before, he now treated her like she was made of fine porcelain.  It was nice to be cared for like this, she’d admitted to herself, realizing fully that she was in great danger of getting far too attached to this small family that made her feel like she belonged somewhere.

Her own mother had died when she’d been very young and her father hadn’t been the same ever since. When he had died two years ago, she had seized her chance at adventure and emigrated to the States. It was nice to get a fresh start, to build a life for herself, but she hadn’t realized until she had landed herself in the hospital how lonely she had been.

She’d been staying with the Golds for almost a week now and she loved it here. When he first made the offer, she’d jumped at the change he offered her, anything to avoid going to Blue Fern Sanatorium.  But after he’d left, she’d started to second-guess her impulsive decision. Staying under the same roof with people she barely knew was bound to give trouble.   
Any relationship she’d had in the past quickly came to an end when her partner discovered just how odd she was. They became annoyed with her chatter or the fact that she was always reading five books at the time or the opinions she voiced and in the end the relationship had always turned sour.

With no romantic attachment between them and her physical condition rendering her almost incapable of helping out or contributing in any way, she felt sure Mr. Gold would very quickly grow tired of having her around.

Until he’d come to visit her in the hospital, she had only known him from vague stories she picked up from the patrons that frequented the library. Apparently he owned half the town and was an incredible strict landlord. Aside from that he also owned the local pawnshop and it seemed it took a special brand of magic to best Mr. Gold in a deal.

She wondered how many of those people got to see the other sight of Mr. Gold. That of the devoted father. It was clear in everything that he did how much he adored his son and after he had told her of his difficulties with his ex-wife and the way she had treated Bae, her heart had ached for the both of them  Rowan Gold was a wonderful father, who loved his son unconditionally and would stop at nothing to ensure his happiness.   
Whenever he talked about his son a smile lit his face, making the lines around the corners of his eyes crinkle and his eyes shone with love and affection. Belle was willing to bet a great deal that he had no idea he was doing it, but she found it deeply endearing.

Bae was the sweetest boy she had ever met. She had noticed him during the monthly class trips to the library straight away. He was quiet, smart and incredible polite, if not a little shy. But Belle suspected that was just a bit of a family trait. The time they spend reading together or playing games had quickly become the highlight of her day and every time he gave her a hug, always careful of her bruises, a deeply hidden longing stirred inside her.

She was thirty years old now and if she wanted to have a family of her own, she needed to get a move on. She still had time left, but with no husband in sight, she’s begun to wonder lately if she’d ever have a child of her own.

As far as she was concerned, Milah Gold was an idiot and her resentment towards the woman she’d never met grew with each passing day.  

She had a wonderful, adorable son and she had just abandoned him in favor of a young lover and a reckless adventure.  Bae was a loving, sweet-tempered child who craved love and affection and she had just turned her back on him.

She had also treated a good, loving man like absolute dirt. From the way he doted on his son and took care of her, she had no qualms in believing that he would make a wonderful husband.  Really, if he was this considerate towards a stranger who’d just happened to be at the right time and the right place when a car was coming at his son, she could well imagine how he would treat the woman he truly loved.

Sighing deeply, Belle tried once more to re-direct her attention towards her book. She was having a lovely time here, but it wouldn’t do to let her imagination run free. Within another two weeks, she’d be ready to return home and although she hoped she had gained two friends, the first after coming to Storybooke, it was foolish to hope for more.

* * *

 

 She had just managed to finish her chapter when the backdoor opened and Rowan and Bae stumbled in, both slightly damp from the rain.

“Back so soon?” she asked surprised, closing her book with a snap. “Didn’t you have a good time?”

Bae shrugged. “It was all right. But I’d rather be home.”

“The weather was foul,” Rowan explained, shrugging out of his coat. “It’s freezing outside, you’d think it was February.”

Glancing outside though the french doors that overlooked the garden, Belle noticed that it was pouring by now, the rain slanting against the windows.  “Looks like you made it home just in time.”

She couldn't help but feel rather elated at their early return and looking forward to spending the afternoon together.

“I’m going to start the fireplace,” Rowan announced and Bae whooped with joy.

“Can I roast marshmallows?” he asked excitedly and his father nodded good-naturedly.

“Sure, go get some from the pantry.”

“You can do that?” Belle asked incredulous. “Roasting marshmallows over a fireplace?”

“It’s what we do,” Rowan answered with a shrug, arranging the logs inside the fireplace before lightening it. “In the summer we sometimes build a campfire outside, but the fireplace works just as well.”

She could picture it. Long evenings lounging in the garden, watching the sun set and the stars appear, putting a sleepy Bae to bed and returning to the dying embers of the fire, talking quietly into the night.    
She couldn’t imagine anything better.

Minutes later Bae returned, carrying a bag of marshmallows and a long stick.

“You need to wait for a couple more minutes before the fire is strong enough,” Rowan cautioned his son.

“Okay, we can give Belle our present first then,” Bae decided, his face lightening up.

“Present?” Belle echoed, blinking in bewilderment but Bae was already running into the hallway to retrieve something from his father’s coat.

“Well, we did promise,” Rowan told her with a shy smile.

When Bae returned seconds later, he handed her a round object, wrapped in tissue paper. “You can come with us next year, that’ll be even better.” he told her.

Carefully removing the tissue paper, Belle unwrapped the candle. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “I love it.”

“Bae picked it out for you,” Rowan told her bashfully.

“But papa helped, he said you liked blue,” Bae piped up.

Belle smiled at his father, noticing how his ears reddened with embarrassment. They were being beyond adorable and how anyone could not want to be with them was beyond her.   
God, she’d give her right arm to be part of a family like this.

Ignoring her painful ribs, she reached out and gave each of them a hug, trying to ignore the fact how nice it felt to have Rowan’s arms around her for a second.

 “Thank you.” Bae popped a marshmallow on the stick and held it above the fire and soon the room was filled with a sweet fragrance. Outside heavy rain was pelting against the windows, but inside it was dry and toasty warm.   
And with the three of them eating marshmallows and laughing together it didn’t get much better than that.


	6. Chapter 6

Every morning and evening a nurse came to assist her with showering and dressing and one of the reasons Belle was very eager for her ribs to heal so that she could take care of herself again was the fact that she simply couldn’t stand the woman.

The nurse was in her mid-forties, had the vigor of a truck and the expression of a pitbull, with her harsh face and severe hairstyle.  Sometimes Belle felt it would be less painful to shower and get dressed at her own pace, because the rough way the nurse helped her and hurried her along only seemed to aggravate her injuries.

On top of that, the woman appeared to be highly disapproving of the fact that she was staying with the Golds for the time being, pursing her lips at every mention of the man.

On this particular morning she was toweling her bruised, left side dry and Belle tried not to wince as the material of the towel rubbled harshly against the tender skin. Getting into her undergarments was getting a little bit easier with every day that passed and Belle felt confident that she would soon be able to dress herself without getting tangled up into her clothing.  

Blushing slightly she remembered the incident a couple of days ago were Rowan had to assist her with getting out of her spaghetti strap top. She hadn’t meant to flash him like that, but pulling a top over her head with three cracked ribs had proven to be too much of an effort. She knew he had looked at her and she couldn’t blame him.   
Any healthy, warm-blooded male in his situation would have, she just wished there had been something for him to look _at_ instead of mostly bruised, black and blue skin.

 He’d been a perfect gentleman the entire time and had appeared so concerned over her bruises that she just wanted to hug the worry away from his face.

“How much longer will you be staying her?” the nurse asked in a clipped tone of voice, dumping the towels into the hamper.

“For another two weeks,” Belle replied. Her recovery was coming on gradually, but sometimes she wondered if she’d be recovered enough by the time the three weeks Dr. Whale had stipulated had come to an end.   
 She would have to be, she decided firmly. She couldn’t impose on Rowan and Bae for much longer.

The nurse gave a disapproving snort and Belle found that she lacked the self control to let it slide.  “Do you have a problem with that?” she asked archly.

“You obviously don’t know Mr. Gold very well if you’re considering staying with him for such a long time,” the nurse replied.

“I know him well enough to know that he’s been incredibly kind and generous by offering me to recover at his home,” Belle shot back.

“Well, you’re new in town and there’s a lot you don’t know about Mr. Gold,” the nurse answered coldly. “I feel that it is my duty to warn you about him.”

“Warn me?” Belle repeated exasperated. “Whatever for?”

“Mr. Gold is not all considered to be a pleasant sort of man,” the nurse told him. “He and his son keep to themselves, he’s unfriendly and shrewd and he owns half the town.”

“I’m aware he’s a landlord,” Belle answered. “As for the rest, I know him as a kind man and I like him a lot.”

“If you know he’s a landlord, you should know that he is a ruthless one. He goes around town every month to personally collect the rent. Every month!”

“Well, I assume the rent is due every month,” Belle replied dryly. “People can hardly be put out about that.”

“He doesn’t offer extensions,” the nurse continued. “If you can’t pay your rent he turns you out. He doesn’t accept any excuses. Two months ago he put the Boyd family out of their home and forced them to move to a cheaper apartment with their baby. Sean’s car had broken down and he needed the money to pay for repairs, but Gold turned him out anyway.”

“Why didn’t he pay his rent first and waited a month for his car to get fixed?” Belle asked flummoxed. Especially with a kid in the mix you’d think anyone would ensure that the rent was paid before anything else.

“Sean drives a vintage pick-up truck,” the nurse explained like she was talking to a particular slow toddler. “He loves that car, it’s like his baby… but Gold wouldn’t hear of it.”

Rowan Gold wouldn’t give an extension to a man who was stupid enough to put a car above the welfare of his baby.  Belle suddenly realized that nothing in the world had ever made more sense.

“Ashley was very upset!” the nurse continued. “She had to move all of her belongings with a baby in tow.”  

Considering the fact that her husband choose to maintain a very expensive car aside from providing for his family, Rowan had probably done the woman a huge favor by arranging for them to move into a far more affordable home.   
“Look, when you rent a place, you know you have to pay rent every month,” she tried to argue logically. “Mr. Gold can’t keep his business afloat if he keeps giving extensions. He has a son to look after too.”

“That man is completely unreasonable!” the nurse argued back. “He always refuses to give extensions.”

“Yes, well, how is giving out extensions fair to the other tenants anyway?” Belle answered, becoming increasingly more annoyed with the other woman. “Everyone needs to pay their rent, what if Mr. Gold starts deciding that someone can skip a month? They’ll all be demanding extensions the next month! This way at least everybody knows what their obligations are.”

The nurse paused for a few moments before turning to her next set of grievances with renewed energy. “You do know Mr. Gold is divorced, don’t you?” she asked, her tone of voice indicating this was a highly shocking bit of information.

“Well, I didn’t assume he grew Bae in a greenhouse, so yes, I do know he’s divorced,” Belle retorted.

“And doesn’t it bother you that his ex-wife thought him to be such a horrible person that she decided to leave him?” the nurse asked triumphantly.

Belle had plenty of opinions about Milah, but she decided not to voice them.

“Did it ever occur to you that leaving him was her loss?” she asked instead.

The nurse snorted derisively. “I hardly doubt that. She accused him from threatening her after she got away from him. That man is rotten to the core.”

Rowan had told her all about the weekend he’d spend frantically looking for his son, for any sign of life from either Milah or Jones, only to discover that the pair had simply been too indifferent too inform him of their travel plans.  She doubted if the nurse knew this though and she wasn’t about to betray any of the things he had told her in confidence.

Instead she decided to put an end to the conversation.  “We’re not going to agree on this,” she stated calmly. “But I think a lot of people refuse to see what a wonderful man he is. You’re so busy resenting him for the fact that you have to pay him rent that you’ve made him into some sort of monster.

I may not have known him for a very long time, but you don’t know him at all!”

“Fine,” the nurse replied in an affronted tone of voice, lifting her hands. “If that’s how you feel, I’ll wash my hand off you. You’re going to find out what kind of man he truly is, mark my words.

Unless of course…” her lips turned into a suspicious smirk as she pondered for a moment.

“Unless you’ve decided he’s a good way to raise your status…”

“What?” Belle exclaimed despite herself.

“Just so you know, you won’t be the first and the man hasn’t as much as looked at another woman since his wife left him. So whatever you’re trying to accomplish by… this…” the nurse waved her hand around the guest room, “you’re not going to succeed.”

The thought that she could only be interested in Rowan for his money was too ridiculous for words and Belle was thoroughly fed up with the other woman.

“I can assure you, I have no ulterior interest in Mr. Gold except for his friendship,” she replied coolly. “And I’d like to get dressed now, as I’m sure you have other clients to visit.”

The nurse made no further comments, just yanked her dress over her head with a little more force than strictly necessary and Belle gritted her teeth, not wanting to give the other woman the satisfaction.

When she finally left, she breathed a sign of relief, determined to call the hospital and ask for a different nurse for the evening.

* * *

 

With his heart pounding and his hands shaking, Gold made his way into his bedroom and closed the door behind him before sinking down on his bed, Belle’s words still ringing in his ears.

_‘ … he’s been incredibly kind and generous…_

…a lot of people refuse to see what a wonderful man he is…

… I may not have know him for a very long time, but you don’t know him at all!’

When he had passed Belle’s door and heard the nurse mention she felt she ought to warn her against him, he had inadvertently stopped in his tracks, anger already starting to well up inside him, until he’d heard Belle’s rebuke.

She had defended him. She had defended his personality, his dealings as a landlord and countered the backslash his divorce had stirred in the small-town community of Storybrooke.   
And not only had she defended him, she _got_ him.

She understood why he moved the Boyd family into another apartment instead of granting an extension, knowing that if he gave in now, they’d be begging for an extension every other month.   
His reputation in Storybooke had been set a long time ago, around the time he started to rent out his first property and established himself as a diligent, but very strict and uncompromising landlord for exactly the same reasons Belle had pointed out to the nurse.  In the twenty-five years or so he had kept a rental business he could count the times he had allowed his tenant an extension on the fingers of one hand. There had been a garage owner once who had lost everything the night his shop burned to the ground and there had been a couple with a five year old daughter suffering from acute leukemia that suddenly found themselves drowning in medical bills. These were clearly cases if circumstances beyond anyone’s control.   
But more often than not, a request for an extension showed poor planning on the tenant’s side or the foolish believe that paying rent was somehow optional. It didn’t pay off to grant extensions in those occasions, but generally only created a bigger problem for all the parties involved.

He knew this policy made him disliked throughout the town, but he had never bothered to be upset about it.  

Milah had hated it, claiming she would never be able to have any sort of social life when her husband was generally perceived to be such a bastard, but her complaints had left him virtually cold.

However, when the nurse had started to list the reasons why Belle should feel apprehensive of him, his stomach had churned with dread and he had to fight the impulse to march into the guest room and demanded that the atrocious woman left straight away.  He’d been sure that by the time the nurse was finished tearing apart his character, Belle would loathe him as much as the rest of the town did.

Instead she had jumped to his defense at the first unfavorable thing the woman has said about him and her words and more specifically the passionate, indignant tone of her voice left his insides shaking.

It had been years since he had truly had anyone on his side, someone who stood by him and didn’t slander him behind his back.

For three years he’d been forced to sit in a court room and listen to his ex-wife telling the judge what a deplorable specimen of a man he was, going on in great detail and with a good dose of exaggeration about every single one of his nasty habits, his temper, his pettiness and generally all the things about himself he wished to keep hidden and than some more completely unfounded accusations on top of that.

Belle’s words of praise and confidence in his character were still resonating inside his head and he was unprepared for how much her words moved him.

He wasn’t used to being liked, being trusted, hadn’t been by anyone for longer than he cared to remember.  

There had been a great deal of truth in her words; people resented him for having to pay him rent and for him not being particularly accommodating about it. He was the town monster and he had reveled in that role for years. It made conducting business infinitely less difficult and he had never cared for a social life anyway.

Until Belle.

Having her see him as a nothing more than a tyrant to be feared, avoided and scorned was too painful a thought to bear.  But knowing that she had faith in him, that she thought there was good in him, even going as far as to say that he was a ‘wonderful’ man was equally terrifying.

He didn’t have a good track-record of holding on to people he cared about. His mother he had never known, his father had abandoned him, after years of neglectful upbringing, at the age of ten into the care of two aunts.  They at least had cared about him, but by then he had already been wary and distrusting.

When he’d been a young man, just barely out of his adolescence, there had been an ambitious, strong-willed girl he’d been absolutely infatuated with and for a while he had believed that he was going to build a future with her. But she too had moved on to greener pastures, leaving him behind disillusioned and broken-hearted.

Then Milah had happened and now, twenty years later he was still putting himself together from that ordeal.

Bae was only a boy now, but the idea that he would one day discover that his father was just an unimpressive, cowardly pretender with nothing more to his name than a large bank account and some designer suits was already fueling his worst nightmares.  

He was fifty years old, had a ruined leg and a kid in tow… his changes of holding on to someone, especially one as lovely as Belle had never been smaller.

* * *

 

That afternoon Bae roped Belle into watching Toy Story III with him.

Since he had been watching fragments of the movie for three months straight most of the entertainment value was lost on him, but he installed himself at the dining room table with his laptop and some correspondence, intending to get some work done, but ending up glancing over at the couch every other minute.

Bae was sprawled across the couch, limbs scattered everywhere and Gold wondered incredulously how such a position could ever be comfortable.  Belle was curled up, her knees tucked underneath her and leaning into the cushions so she wouldn’t put pressure on the bruises on her left side.

Quickly he averted his eyes and tried to focus his attention on the letter from the city council in front of him, but it was to no avail.    
The image of her perfect porcelain skin, the soft curves of her body and her sweet scent burst into his memory.

She was the loveliest, most beautiful woman he had ever met and the more he got to know her, the more he began to yearn for her.  For days he had tried to tell himself that he was in love with the idea of a loving, caring wife and a gentle, nurturing mother for Bae, but after this morning he realized how badly he’d been fooling himself. He wasn’t in love with an idea, he was in love with _her_. He didn’t want an imaginary perfect woman, he wanted Belle.

Cursing himself he started to type an email, his fingers almost pressing through the keys with the force he was using. He had no business looking. He had no business being infatuated with an unattainable woman half his age.   
 He had to stop being a fool.

He lasted for all of five minutes and than he looked up again, only to find that Bae had snuggled up against her and that Belle had wrapped her right arm around him.  His restless six-year-old had gone quiet, his head resting on Belle’s shoulder as he watched the movie with heavy-lidded eyes.

He knew that Bae would be happy if Belle were to live with them permanently. His son had never indicated that he missed his mother, but it was obvious that he enjoyed having Belle around immensely. He was happier and more outgoing than he’d been since he got him back from Milah and it only deepened his feeling of dejection.

Belle was perfect in every way and just having her stay with them would make both Bae and himself so happy.  But he wouldn’t be able to return the favor and within a short time she’d grow to be desperately unhappy, just like Milah had.   
She’d leave him and loathe him as much as Milah did now.

Perhaps lucky for him, Belle wasn’t romantically interested in him at all. She had made that perfectly clear to the nurse that morning when she said all she wanted from him was friendship.

She probably had suitors lined up. She hadn’t been in Storybooke, but she must have caught someone attention. Someone beside him must have noticed how wonderful she was. Once she had recovered from her injuries it would take next to no time before some handsome, athletic young man asked her out on her date and she’d happily agree, not thinking twice about the old, limping grump she had lived with for a few weeks.

And the sooner he got that into his thick head, the better.

When he looked up again, his hands froze above the keyboard and a rush of emotion washed over his as she took in the sight in front of him.

Belle and Bae had both fallen asleep on the couch, Belle on her back, her arm draped next to her head and Bae cuddled against her. The warm feeling settled in the pit of his stomach, burning and aching there as he watched them, tears threatening his eyes.

Without making a sound he rose to his feet and made his way over to the couch, careful not to let his cane click on the floor. His son was out like a light, his face flushed and his dark hair a mess of unruly curls. Belle was smiling softly in her sleep and she looked so serene and so beautiful that for a moment he forgot how to breathe.

The three of them would make a wonderful family and as he reached out to pull the afghan from the back of the couch and drape it over them, he allowed himself to dream for a few seconds longer.

But by the time he had tucked the blanket around them his resolve had grown firm enough.

Belle was a guest in his house. He had promised to take care of her while she healed from the injuries she had sustained saving his son’s life. She trusted him and he would sooner cut himself than betray her trust. He wouldn’t compromise her. He wouldn’t cause her a moment of discomfort. If he told her of his feelings and she rejected him things would become so awkward she’d feel obliged to move to Blue Fern Sanatorium after all.

He had promised her a safe and comfortable place to recuperate and Rowan Gold never broke his word.


	7. Chapter 7

The weather continued to be bleak and chilly for the time of year, so they were forced to spend a lot of time indoors.  

Gold found that he didn’t mind at all. They had fallen into an easy kind of domestic routine and he felt sure that neither him nor Bae had ever been happier.  At long last his home was a stable one and he watched in wonder how his son thrived at the attention Belle gave him.

Bae came racing to his car the second he got off the school bus, eager to go home and spend the afternoon having dinner, making his homework with the assistance of the two adults and spend the rest of the evening playing games or being read to.   
And in a much more quiet way, he was enjoying himself just as much, soaking up this special time were he could pretend that they were a real family.  Once he had realized the depths of his feelings for her, he felt himself falling more in love with her with every day that passed and yearning stronger for things that would never be.

It was a beautiful, tantalizing dream… Belle was his wife and Bae’s mother, they were happy together and their home was filled with love and laughter.  She loved him and he was making her happy. He never had to worry about her leaving him or fear her displeasure or her censure, because he was enough for her.

But as much as the dream warmed his heart, he kept a vigil watch on his words and actions whenever he was around her. He would not slip up. He would not make her uncomfortable with unwanted declarations or worse… unsolicited actions that revealed his feelings for her.

He’d been given three weeks, three weeks in which she was to stay with him and he got to enjoy her company, her smiles and her chatter.  Three weeks in which he could pretend that this was real and that their time together would never come to an end. Three weeks in which he got a taste of the kind of life he could have given his son if he had made different choices in his life. Three weeks in which the both of them could experience what it was like to be a whole family.

And once those weeks were over he would let her go and treasure his memories.

* * *

 

On a rainy Sunday afternoon, almost two weeks after Belle had come to stay with them, they ended up playing Monopoly Junior.  Although Gold personally couldn’t wait to introduce his son to the real game of buying property and investing wisely, as long as Bae was still learning how to add numbers, the Junior edition of the game was a fun way to tie them over.

Ten minutes into the game it became pretty obvious that Belle was just as competitive as the both of them were, but had the worst luck when it came to boardgames.  Soon her huffs of indignation and frustration as she once again rolled the dice and came up with a meager single dot - heavily exasperated for Bae’s entertainment - send the boy into a fit of giggles every single time.   
Especially since Bae apparently was on a lucky strike and rolled one six after another.

“You should take him to the horse races,” she muttered under her breath and he grinned, handing Bae another pair of fake one dollar notes as he passed ‘Go’ once more.

“Ah yes! Finally!” she exclaimed when at long last the dice showed five. But she had barely lifted her pawn when her face fell and Bae simply hooted with glee.

“And now I’m in jail! I don’t believe it!”

Bae rolled another six and bought the ice-cream parlor, while Gold rose to his feet intending to collect the glasses for a refill of juice. He reached out his hand to take Bae’s glass, momentarily distracted by the stack of banknotes his son handed him after his purchase and moments later, instead of grasping the cool, hard surface of the glass, his fingers closed around something soft and warm.

His hand froze in confusion, but it wasn’t until Belle’s surprised gasp that he looked up and saw what had happened, his insides turning cold with horror.

Misjudging the distance by several inches, instead of the glass his fingers were now curled around Belle’s breast, as she’d been leaning over towards Bae to help him count his remaining banknotes.

It lasted no longer than a second - the longest, most mortifying second of his life - before he jerked his hand back, his face flaming with embarrassment.

“I-I’m sorry…” he managed to grind out, his voice sounding like gravel, his stomach clenching with panic.  

She was going to be furious. She would think he was a pervert, trying to cup a feel over a bloody board game and she would insist on leaving his home straight away and never look at him again. Bae was going to be crushed and he would never be able to look at himself in the mirror again.

“Belle… I swear, it wasn’t my intention to behave inappropriately…” To his dismay he heard how weak and shaky his voice was sounding and his heart sank even further, cold sweat forming on his forehead.

 Pleading had never worked with Milah, had only fueled her dislike and later her revulsion with him further.   
It wouldn’t pacify Belle either. He was lucky if she didn’t call the Sheriff on him.

Bracing himself for her fury, he slammed his mouth shut and gripped the handle of his cane for support.

“Rowan…” Her soft voice cut through the miserable cacophony of self-incriminating thoughts swimming through his head.

“It’s all right… I know it was an accident…”

He allowed himself an unsteady breath, searching her face for any signs of anger or disgust and finding none.

She continued to hold his gaze, two bright red spots appearing on both of her cheeks.   
“Really, no harm done,” she insisted firmly.

His body slumped as the tension inside him alleviated, his heart beating furiously against his ribs. “I was just…” He gestured lamely towards the glass, inwardly wincing at how hoarse he was still sounding. “Would you like some more juice as well?”

She smiled genuinely at him, handing him both her and Bae’s glasses, his son blissfully ignorant to what had transpired, too busy rejoicing in his pile of money.  “I’d love some.”

Belle was nothing like Milah and the relief was making him feel light-headed, although he still felt embarrassed enough to drown himself in a very cold shower.

 She thought it was an awkward accident and was still in the dark about his growing attachment to her. She would stay with him for another ten days more and with renewed determination, he vowed to himself that he would not slip up again.

* * *

 

After he returned with the refills, Belle tried to keep focussed on the game, paying close attention to Bae who was rapidly turning into the game’s real estate tycoon. Still, she couldn’t help but sneak covert glances at the man sitting across the table from her.

His face was slowly returning to its normal color, but the slight shake of his hand as he lifted a glass of ice-cold water to his mouth and gulped down a few sips told her he was still highly unsettled.

There was not a single trace of doubt in her mind that the touch had been entirely accidental. His stricken expression and stammered apologies being all the proof that she needed.

A few weeks after her arrival into Storybrooke she had decided to get a taste of the town’s nightlife and headed down to the only bar in town, a grubby place called ‘The Rabbit Hole’. She had lasted for exactly twenty-three minutes before the not-so-accidental bumps against her body and straying hands towards her backside had made her rush out of the place in disgust.

Once she’d gotten home, she had treated herself to a long shower and curled up on the couch in her flanel pajamas with a book that within minutes proved to be more interesting than any of the men she’d met at the bar that night.

Rowan Gold was different from the crude, inebriated men she had met that night. He was kind and thoughtful and the most interesting man she’d ever met.

And touching her like that was the furthest thing from his mind.

Belle fought down a dejected sigh and moved up her cat-shaped paw another square, moving the dice on to Bae.  After her antipathy towards the grabby men at The Rabbit Hole she had no right to feel put out that a decent, gentleman-like man like Rowan was so opposed to touching her.

Only she was.

Her body was still tingling, the spot were his fingers had grazed her breast still feeling hot and prickly.  The rush of feelings that had washed over her at his unexpected an unintentional touch had surprised her, especially when she realized how much she wanted him to touch her like that.

Taking a sip of her orange juice against her suddenly dry throat she let her eyes wander again, thankful that he was too preoccupied with Bae to notice her staring.

He really was a rather handsome man, even though not conventionally so. But the way his brown, streaked with grey hair brushed the collar of his suit made her want to bury her fingers in it, just to find out if it was a soft and silky as it looked.

The more she got to know him, the more attractive he became. Right on their first proper meeting in the hospital, she’d been impressed by his presence and the fine figure he cut in his impeccable suits.  But now she noticed so much more. The first time she’d looked at him she’d thought his brown eyes were beautiful.   
Now they captivated her as she could see a world of emotions and feelings in their depths.  

And anything his eyes didn’t reveal, his hands did and she’d caught herself staring at them at a few occasions already.   
A twitch of his fingers, the way he gripped his cane, or how his hands often wavered protectively near his son… he could arrange his face into a perfect mask, but his hands often betrayed him.

Hands that she wanted to feel on her own body, because the accidental brush he’d given her earlier was nowhere near enough to satisfy her curiosity.  She wondered what it was like to be with him, to feel his arms around her and his lips on her skin.   
There was a great deal of passion he kept locked inside, she was certain of that. He had a great capacity to love - he’d endured an abusive marriage, just because he’d wanted to keep his family intact for his son’s sake. The fierceness of his dedication, the intensity of the love that he showed for his son made her wonder what it would be like to be the object of such love.   
There was a lot of passion, but she somehow suspected that he would be gentle before anything else.

Fighting down another sigh, Belle bit her lower lip as an unexpected memory of her last boyfriend suddenly floated through her mind.  Gaston had been the main reason why she’d been so set on packing up and leaving Australia. She wanted a new start, but most of all, she wanted a clean break from Gaston.

She had certainly been in love with him, especially at the beginning. He had made it abundantly clear that he wanted her and that he would stop at nothing to get her. She had been flattered by his attention, he was a good-looking guy and she’d felt horribly lonely after her father’s death. It was nice to belong to someone again, to not have to face everything alone.  But a half year into their relationship she’d realized that for Gaston it had mostly been the thrill of the chase. Once he had her, he became gradually less complimentary and attentive, until it suddenly dawned on her how demanding he really was, his boyish charm nothing but a thin layer of varnish.

They didn’t fight, he wasn’t horrible to her, but one day she came to the conclusion that instead of feeling relaxed and _herself_ around him, she always felt that she had to be on her best behavior in front of him.    
Their break-up had been painful. Gaston wasn’t used to being dumped, even though she tried to be as gently as she possibly could, ensuring him that it wasn’t him and that she just wasn’t ready to commit to anyone yet.

Gaston had agreed whole-heartily with the notion that everything that had gone wrong between them happened because of her and presented her with a laundry-list of reasons why she was such awful girlfriend material.  

On a sensible level she knew he was just hurt and his ego even more so, but a few of the things he’d said to her did sting and even now, more than a year later, she still couldn’t completely banish his words from her memory.

When she’d temporarily moved in the with the Golds she had feared that within days he’d grow just as annoyed with her as Gaston had, but to her great surprise, things between her and Rowan had never grown uncomfortable.   
 It didn’t matter if she wandered through the house in her yoga-pants and a loose-fitted shirt because those were the only clothes that she could bear against her bruises. It didn’t matter if she fell asleep half way through a movie, a side-effect of her pain medication, or if she was even clumsier than usual, Rowan remained completely unperturbed by it.

He was caring and attentive and Belle was startled by how secure he made her feel.    
Being with Rowan and Bae was the easiest thing in the world because she could just be herself around them and the thought of leaving them at the end of next week became harder to stomach with each day that passed.

And now his accidental touch had created a whole new rush of yearning. She wanted him. She wanted to know what his kiss tasted like or how his hands would feel exploring her body. She wanted all of his concentration focussed on her and drown in it.

She wanted to find out what he liked, how she could shatter his impressive self-control with touches and kisses of her own.

She wanted to know if he would let her.

After the hell his ex-wife had put him through, she wanted him to feel love and cherished again. He deserved it all and so much more. A woman who was so completely smitten with him that she couldn’t bear to be apart from him again. A woman who would tease him and make him laugh until the lines around his eyes were permanently crinkled with laughter. A woman who warmed him during the night, who held him and kissed him and loved him until all the cold and loneliness had dispatched from his heart.

She wanted to be that woman for him.

She might as well yearn for the moon.

Rowan Gold was not in any way romantically interested in her.  A man like him had no use for the inexperienced, clumsy, head-in-the-clouds, small town bookworm that she was. Her dreams had always been too grand, too unrealistic to become a reality, but it had never hurt her as much as it did now.

She had ten more days with him and Bae and as she handed over her last banknotes to Bae, thus ending the game, she firmly vowed to herself that she would enjoy these days but expect nothing more than that.

She wouldn’t slip up and make things awkward between them.


	8. Chapter 8

“Papa, can Chip come over to play tomorrow?” Bae asked the question during dinnertime, without so much as batting an eye, being more occupied by trying to get his peas to stay on his fork.  

Across from him however Gold froze, his eyes growing wide. His mouth moved silently for a few seconds until he was able to clarify: “You mean Charlie Potts?”

“Yes!” Bae replied after successfully swallowing his vegetables. “I told him about the treehouse and he said that it sounded really cool, so I asked him to come over. Is that all right?”

“Yes… yes, of course…” Gold stammered, gripping this fork so tightly, his knuckles turned white. “I’ll give Mrs Potts a call later tonight to make arrangements.”

“Thank you, Papa,” Bae beamed at him and returned to his dinner, still looking wholly unperturbed.

Belle however noticed that his father seemed rather dazed for the reminder of the meal.

“Is everything okay?” she asked him later in the kitchen, as they were putting the dishes away together, quietly as to not be overheard by Bae.

“He’s never had a friend over before,” Gold replied, still in shock.

_“Never?”_ Belle asked, genuinely surprised.

Gold shook his head. “Apparently Milah never let him. And from what Dr. Hopper and I could gather, he never went on play dates or anything like that either. Bae never had much opportunity to interact with other children, so now making friends is hard for him.   
He struggled a lot last year when he was in kindergarten and preferred to keep to himself. I’ve been worrying about it for a while now because he needs friends… he needs other kids to play with. Dr. Hopper kept saying that I shouldn’t push it and that Bae would let me know when he was ready… and apparently, he is now.”

Once again Belle’s heart cracked a little at hearing how much Bae had been deprived of things no child should have to go without, but she smiled encouragingly up into Rowan’s worried eyes.   
“That’s great, isn’t it?”

But to her surprise he gave her a grim look.   
“That remains to be seen…” he answered tersely. “Bae is still vulnerable… if this doesn’t go well, he might have a setback. What if Charlie changes his mind tomorrow, or what if does come over but they don’t have a good time?”

Placing her hand on his upper arm, Belle could just feel how tense he was.   
“I’m sure it will work out fine…” she said reassuringly. “Bae said himself that Charlie was eager to come. It didn’t seem like a big deal to him, so that means he must be truly ready for it.”

He heaved a deep sigh, his worried expression only lightening marginally.   
“I suppose you’re right,” he conceded eventually. “It’s just… this _has_ to go right.”

“And it _will,_ ” she soothed him. “Bae is a wonderful kid, he’s great company. His friend is going to love it here…” 

“You really think so?” he asked anxiously and Belle fought the urge to wrap her arms around him and kiss the worry from his face.  He was so determined to make up for everything Bae had been deprived of in his short life and so terrified he would end up causing his son more pain.

“I do,” she insisted firmly. “Kids are a lot less complicated than most adults are… Everything will be all right, you’ll see. They’ll spend most of the time up in that treehouse pretending to pirates and it will be a great experience for Bae.”

He gave her a small smile, his eyes softening at her words.   
“I’ll give Mrs. Potts a call first,” he decided. “She might have objections and before Bae gets too excited, I want to make sure she’s on board.”

“Do you know her well?” Belle asked.

“I bump into her every now and then when I’m picking up Bae,” he told her. “She’s a single mother… somewhat older than most of the other moms… She had Chip when she was already in her forties.”

Now that he was no longer looking so stressed out, Belle dared to voice the question that had her wondering since Bae made his announcement.   
“Is Chip really his name though? It’s very unusual…”

Rowan chuckled at her baffled expression, more of his tension evaporating.   
“His name’s actually Charlie, but at the start of the school year he ran face first into a door and chipped his front teeth. Everyone just calls him ‘Chip’ ever since. Apparently he’s still the hero of the playground.”

She joined his laughter, happy to have been able to ease his worries.   
Having a friend over to play was the single most normal thing in the world and the both of them would soon find out that it was nothing to fret about.

* * *

 

With his mother’s permission easily gained, Chip Potts came over the following day and twenty minutes after both boys had stepped inside the house, Gold already felt like tearing out his hair in anxious frustration.

Once again it was pouring outside, heavy rain pelting the windows, making him believe that even though the first week of May had already passed, they would never get a proper summer.

Standing in front of the tall, glass doors, both Bae en Chip stared miserably at the sodden garden and the equally dripping, inaccessible treehouse.

“We could play a game on my DS?” Bae offered half-heartily and from Chip’s slow, hesitant nod Gold could tell that the other boy was less than enthusiastic about the idea. It hadn’t even been half an hour and the afternoon was already an utter failure.   
No doubt any minute now Chip woud ask him to call his mother to come and collect him. 

Bae would be devastated and it would take many months of intensive counseling before his son would feel confident enough again to invite another child over.

He looked over at Belle, who was sitting on the couch, her feet tucked up under her and shot her a desperate gaze. She gave him a reassuring smile before biting her lower lip thoughtfully, her brow furrowed in concentration.   
Then her face lit up and she turned towards the two boys.

“Hey guys, if it’s too wet outside to play in the treehouse, how about we build a fort right here in the living room?”

Two, almost identical looks of excitement crossed their faces as both boys skipped over to the couch, their eyes wide with eagerness.

“How would we do that?”

Uncurling herself from the couch, Belle grinned, looking almost equally enthusiastic. “We need lots of blankets and pillows… and perhaps a couple of chairs… And your father needs to approve of course…”

Over the children’s head, she shot him a slightly apologetic look, but in light of his son’s and friend’s obvious joy at her suggestion he would probably have agreed had she suggested a game of paint ball in the living room.

“I’m sure we’ll be able to find those items,” he conceded as Bae and Chip let out a whoop of happiness.

Fifteen minutes later, the living room was an unrecognizable mess. Various fauteuils and the coffee table were pushed aside to create more space and Bae and Chip were arranging dining room chairs next to the couch to create a wall for their fort.

“If we put blankets over them and the back of the couch, we’ll have a fort that’s big enough to fit all of us,” Bae said, looking at the arrangement critically.

“We should put cushions inside as well,” Chip suggested and next thing he knew, Gold watched the two boys pulling seating cushions from various chairs and arranging them on the floor.

Their enthusiasm was rather infectious and as Belle helped them to drape the blankets over the couch and chairs, effectively creating their fort, he ransacked a storage closet for anything that might be helpful and when he came across a box of Christmas ornaments an idea sprang to mind.   
“How about some twinkle-lights for inside the fort?” he called over his shoulder.

Bae and Chip cheered and Belle gave him a beaming smile and for the first time that the afternoon he began to feel that the play-date could actually become a success.

With the help of a few extension chords the boys hung the lights inside the blanket fort while Belle disappeared into the kitchen to prepare some drinks and snacks. At long last everything was settled and the boys crawled inside, Gold happily listening to their excited whispering and laughing.

“Papa… Belle… aren’t you going to come inside too?” Bae called from inside the fort.

Belle shot him a surprised look and it took him exactly one second to make up his mind.   
“Of course we will, son!” he answered, looking questioningly at Belle.

The confusion was still clear on her face, even as her eyes softened and she nodded.

Making their way to the entrance of the fort, he winced in sympathy as Belle gingerly sank to her knees and alleviated her weight as much to the right as possible as to not further aggravate her injuries.

“Will you be all right?” he asked quietly as he crouched down besides her, ignoring the sharp pain in his own ankle.

“I’m fine,” she whispered back, carefully scooting forward. “I just need to go slow. What about you? How’s your ankle?”

Her question startled him, unaccustomed as he was by people caring about his comfort.   
“No worse than usual,” he was quick to reassure her, watching her with hawk-like eyes as she slowly crawled inside. For all her insistence that she was all right, he wasn’t fooled. Her posture was tense and she moved very carefully, biting her lower lip every time she had to move her left arm or leg.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” he told her quietly, unable to keep the worry out of his voice.

She gave him a wary smile, scooting forward another few inches.  “But I _want_ to,” she insisted. “It isn’t so bad, honestly… I just feel like a hundred years old.”

He huffed derisively at that. “Easy now… some of us are already half way there.”

To his surprise she snorted at that, her giggle filling the small space and when he caught her gaze, her eyes were sparkling at him, the light of the twinkle-lights reflected in the deep blue.   
“Yeah, I think you’re fine,” she informed him with a teasing smile and he couldn’t help but reply with a grin of his own.

It was amazing really, he reflected as he settled down on the cushions. With Belle he never felt old or battered and even if he did, it didn’t bother him. Her warmth and easy acceptance making it easy to just joke about things that before had been such painful subjects to him.   
Carefully he turned his head and watched her profile in the semi-dark as she was lying flat on her back on the cushions, gazing up at the twinkle-lights.

“It looks really amazing,” she said quietly.

“Yeah it does,” Bae agreed quietly, lying only a few inches away. “They look just like stars."  

"It’s a shame you can’t see the signs,” Chip volunteered, equally sprawled out on the cushions.

“Of course you can,” Gold replied good naturally, while stretching his bad leg out in front of him. To proof his point, he pointed lazily at the blanket roof.   
“Over there you have ‘Big Chunk of Lights…’ he indicated a particular stubborn knot of lights that they hadn’t managed to untangle, before pointing to a dark spot where a few of the lights had refused to work. “And over there is the ‘Unfortunate Gap’.”

Besides him, Bae and Chip dissolved into giggles, especially when Belle pointed to a shimmering light on top of a row of five, its light slowly fading in and out.

 “Look, and over there is ‘The Misleading Lighthouse…’”

For the next twenty minutes or so they entertained themselves with thinking up names for the various patterns created by the twinkle-lights, all the while munching away the popcorn Belle had prepared earlier. It was simple and perfect and Gold couldn’t believe just how easy it was to lay there and joke around and laugh like a completely normal, stable family.

Belle was laying only inches away from him and the urge to reach out and intertwined his fingers with hers became almost impossible to ignore.    
They were having a wonderful, peaceful afternoon and he was inclined to contribute it all to her. Being Bae’s father was the single most fulfilling role he’d ever had, but there was no denying that it was difficult to be a single father at times. Until Belle had come into his life, he’d never had a person to share those responsibilities with and he was rather overwhelmed with how good that felt. For some reason she made everything more easy and all within the realm of possibility and not for the first time in the past ten days he allowed himself to pretend that this was a permanent situation.

That Belle was his wife and Bae’s mom and that their perfect family was not just merely an illusion, but a very beautiful reality.

* * *

 

It was with a heavy heart that they eventually crawled out of the fort and put the furniture back into its original place. The closeness and intimacy of the make-shift fort had him longing for more, but he pushed those thoughts away with single-minded determination.

Once the living room was tidy again, he looked outside the window, noticing to his relief that it had finally stopped raining.    
“How about we go for an ice-cream before I drop Chip off,” he suggested.

Both Bae and Chip cheered enthusiastically and even Belle’s eyes lit up at the idea.

“Will you be joining us?” he asked quietly, as the boys stormed into the hallway to get their coats.

“It will be nice to get some fresh air…” she said hesitantly, her eyes darting towards the window with a longing look.

She’d been coped up inside for almost two weeks now, without even as much as a hint of irritation, but he could well imagine how much she must be yearning for a change of scenery.

“We’ll take the car,” he offered. “And if it becomes too much for you, we can head straight back.”

The worry left her face and was replaced by an excited grin. “It does sound very tempting,” she conceded, “I’ll go and get my coat too.”

Ten minutes later they were on their way and even if Belle occasionally winced when they drove over a bump in the road, no matter how carefully he tried to navigate the car, her eyes were still beaming.

He managed to park the car only half a block away from the ice-cream parlor and he offered her his arm as they made their way to ‘Any Given Sundae’. Even though she was still leaning heavily on his arm as they walked, she was chatting and joking happily and her obvious joy managed to dissipate most of her worries.  Even though her body was still fragile and she tired easily, she was enjoying herself immensely and he vowed to himself to protect her to the best of his abilities.

Once inside the ice-cream parlor he settled her into one of the booths and enlisted Bae and Chip’s help in getting the ice-creams.   
Ingrid, the owner of the shop merely lifted her eyes at the sight of them entering together, but to his relief made no comment.

It wasn’t until they were all sitting down and enjoying their ice-cream that he realized that this was perhaps the first time since Milah had left them that he was out and about in public without worrying what the reactions of the town would be.   
The first time he didn’t feel the need to hurry Bae along in attempt to protect him from curious or scornful comments.

The family he had so longed for for most of his life was finally shaping around him.  

If only it was a reality.


End file.
